Case Study: Cydar achieves real-time, cost-effective GPU-powered surgical imaging with Amazon Web Services

Cydar - Customer Case Study

Cydar, a UK clinical applications spin‑off from King’s College London and Guy’s and St. Thomas’ hospitals, develops GPU‑accelerated 3D visualization and cloud high‑performance computing that overlays CT scans on live x‑ray to support surgeons. By 2012 its software ran on a single server and overlay updates took minutes, halting other processes; Cydar needed sub‑5‑second updates, massive GPU compute, rapid scalability, and a low‑upfront‑cost model that avoided building an expensive data center.

Cydar moved to AWS, using Amazon VPC, EC2 GPU instances (including Spot Instances), S3 storage, Marketplace tools, and IAM/MFA for security, and was hosting its first cloud‑based surgeries within three months. The cloud solution delivered bursty, sub‑5‑second image processing across multiple theatres, saved about £200,000 in upfront costs, provided strong compliance assurances (ISO 27001, G‑Cloud and planned HIPAA support), and let Cydar offer hospitals an OPEX pricing model that accelerates adoption and scalability.

Cydar

Tom Carrell

Chief Executive Officer