Hypervision advances surgical intelligence with next-generation AI-enabled spectral imaging

Hypervision Surgical, a King’s College London spin-out pioneering the next generation of intraoperative imaging, is accelerating its mission to transform surgical decision-making. Following UKCA certification and FDA clearance of its first hyperspectral vision platform, and with multi-centre clinical evaluations underway in UK hospitals, the company is now scaling its on-chip hyperspectral imaging (HSI) and real-time artificial intelligence (AI) analytics to power global adoption of intelligent surgical vision.

Overcoming the barriers to hyperspectral imaging in clinical practice

Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) has long shown promise in providing critical tissue-level insights – such as oxygenation, perfusion, and tissue differentiation – but until now, its clinical adoption has been limited. Previous systems have struggled with integration due to hardware complexity, slow processing speeds, and poor compatibility with surgical workflows, limiting their use to research settings or post-operative analysis.

Hypervision has overcome these challenges with the world’s first regulatory-cleared intraoperative imaging platform, combining on-chip HSI with real-time AI analytics operating at over 60 frames per second. This breakthrough enables ultra-compact, high-frame-rate spectral sensing systems that integrate seamlessly into existing surgical vision platforms and workflows.

By embedding HSI natively into the operating room, Hypervision is unlocking high-fidelity spectral tissue imaging at a scale and speed previously unattainable – revealing anatomical, physiological, and pathological detail beyond the limits of human vision, and making advanced tissue-level analytics accessible in routine clinical practice.

Strategic partnering with imec to scale spectral imaging for surgery

After several years of successful collaboration, imec and Hypervision have now signed a strategic development agreement to co-develop scalable HSI technologies tailored for surgical applications.

imec, one of the world’s leading R&D hubs for nanoelectronics and digital technologies, leverages its expertise in semiconductor fabrication, equipment and process technology to develop on-chip spectral imaging, and to design and manufacture interference-based optical filters at the wafer level. Their unique CMOS-based infrastructure provides very compact, clean and high-yield optical filter integration with scalability to high-volume production at low cost.

This partnership combines imec’s cutting-edge on-chip spectral sensing technology with Hypervision’s expertise in real-time, surgery-certified AI analytics. Together, they aim to deliver ultra-compact, high-resolution intraoperative imaging systems that seamlessly support critical surgical decision-making – setting a new benchmark for intelligent, precision-guided care in the operating room.

By establishing this strategic venture collaboration, we underscore the importance of providing deeptech startups like Hypervision access to imec’s world-leading expertise in semiconductor technology. By leveraging imec’s next-generation hyperspectral sensor technology with Hypervision’s capabilities in real-time AI-powered spectral imaging, we are uniting deeptech nanotechnology with advanced AI-driven surgical intelligence. This marks a significant step toward integrating hyperspectral imaging seamlessly into clinical practice – enabling a new era of precision-guided surgery and improved patient care.

— Dr Olivier Rousseaux, Director of Venture Development at imec

AI-powered on-chip hyperspectral imaging (HSI) delivers ultra-compact and high-frame-rate spectral imaging to the operating room – seamlessly integrating with existing surgical vision systems to provide real-time insights to help surgeons make more precise, informed decisions during surgery.

At Hypervision, we are driven by a vision to redefine what’s possible in the operating room. This strategic partnership with imec allows us to integrate groundbreaking chip-level spectral technology into scalable surgical solutions – accelerating our mission to bring advanced surgical intelligence to every procedure.

                            — Dr Michael Ebner, CEO and Co-Founder of Hypervision

Hypervision’s technology simultaneously delivers both conventional colour imagery and real-time quantitative tissue oxygenation maps (StO2), extending the surgeon’s visual capability beyond the limits of human vision. This dual-modality view has the potential to make surgical procedures more informed, precise, and safe. Images were captured in a laparoscopic pre-clinical setting with induced ischemia of the large bowel.