Position paper on COVID-19 imaging and AI: From the clinical needs and technological challenges to initial AI solutions at the lab and national level towards a new era for AI in healthcare

•In this position paper, we provide a collection of views on the role of AI in the COVID-19 pandemic, from the clinical needs to the design of AI-based systems, to the translation of the developed tools to the clinic.•We highlight key factors in designing system solutions - per specific task; as well as design issues in managing the disease on the national level.•We focus on three specific use-cases for which AI systems can be built: from the early disease detection, the management of the disease in a hospital setting, and building patient-specific predictive models that require the combination of imaging with additional clinical features.•Infrastructure considerations and population modeling in two European countries will be described.•This pandemic has made the practical and scientific challenges of making AI solutions very explicit. A discussion concludes this paper, with a list of challenges facing the community in the AI road ahead.