--- --- Aug 26, 2025 # Jeff Leek Vice president and chief data officer, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center by [Annalisa Merelli](https://time.com/author/annalisa-merelli/) ## Annalisa Merelli  Photo-Illustration by TIME (Courtesy Photo) Through the Cancer AI Alliance (CAIA), Jeff Leek and his team are seeking to enable AI-supported discovery of cancer treatments. The CAIA is a first-of-its-kind partnership between leading cancer care centers like Fred Hutchinson, Dana-Farber, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and major tech partners including AWS, Deloitte, Microsoft, Nvidia, the Allen Institute for AI, and Slalom Consulting. “The goal is to 10x the speed with which a researcher can come up with an idea and have it executed,” says Leek, chief data officer at Fred Hutch. CAIA’s idea is simple enough: connect anonymized patient data from the various institutions through federated AI learning models, allowing researchers in one partner institution to use data from another without accessing it directly—thus bypassing the legal limitations on actually sharing sensitive data between institutions. The aim is to use AI to accelerate the data analysis and also help the centers aggregate their insights. Less than a year after the launch in October 2024, dozens of cancer centers have already expressed interest in joining CAIA. “It doesn't matter what company you work for, what cancer center you work at,” Leek says. “We're all trying to accomplish the same goal, which is to help patients get better, live longer, and detect cancer earlier.” Jeff Leek: The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2025 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305795/jeff-leek/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305795/jeff-leek/"},"headline":"Jeff Leek","datePublished":"2025-08-26T18:55:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T11:54:40.547Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305795/jeff-leek/","keywords":["Tech","list","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades","TIME100 AI 2025"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte9fd00b42204173b/6998c92aa97fc04360a749af/Jeff-Leek.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Annalisa Merelli","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/annalisa-merelli/"}],"creator":"Annalisa Merelli","articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte9fd00b42204173b/6998c92aa97fc04360a749af/Jeff-Leek.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305795/jeff-leek/","name":"Jeff Leek"}}]}] ```