Chip giant Intel has partnered with Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research and is working on a study that will pull patterns from data collected from patients' wearable devices.

The collaboration, which Intel announced recently, will give the software giant the opportunity to show off the power of Intel-powered data center infrastructure in the Amazon Web Services public cloud, as well as the Cloudera distribution of the Hadoop open-source software for analyzing lots of different kinds of data.

"The health-care industry is where we truly believe the biggest opportunity lies when it comes to big data analytics," said Mr Diane Bryant, senior vice president, Intel data center group.

The data taken from smart watches can detect walking, tremors, and other activities in patients. Data scientists can then consider the perspectives of Parkinson's experts to develop algorithms that can look for trends and anomalies.

A study that began this year involved 16 Parkinson's patients and nine control volunteers who wore wearables, according to a statement. Data scientists at Intel are exploring the data now.

Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Israel are participating in the effort, Mr Bryant mentioned.