Healthcare AI 2025

CHINA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Gil Zhang, Diana Li, Muran Sun and Huihui Li, Fangda Partners

In the first half of 2025, Tsinghua University’s Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR) established the world’s first agent hospital, covering 21 departments and over 300 disease diagnoses. The AI system, trained using tens of thousands of virtual patient cases, achieved a diagnostic accuracy exceeding 93%. Compared to traditional digital tools, this model improves workflow efficiency by more than 100-fold, while maintaining interpretability and traceability. By integrating medical care, education and research, it creates a closed-loop AI healthcare ecosystem. AI implementation at the hospital level is also acceler - ating. Notable examples include the following. • Linfen People’s Hospital (Shanxi) invested CNY15.69 million to deploy DeepSeek’s LLM. This initiative supports an intelligent triage platform and a regional computing cluster, alleviating the short - age of skilled physicians. • The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine developed an AI pathology model integrating visual and language capabili - ties. It uploads digitised pathological slides to the cloud for assisted diagnosis, rapidly screening out normal specimens while precisely identifying suspected lesions, providing doctors with accurate references. • Xijing Hospital in Xi’an, in collaboration with the AI developer DeepSeek, introduced an AI clinical assistant trained on real-world medical records to support documentation and diagnosis, improving workflow efficiency across multiple departments. These developments demonstrate AI’s unique value in optimising limited healthcare resources in China. By enabling “AI-collaborative physicians” in frontline settings, medical institutions can enhance service accessibility while supporting the training of AI-literate medical professionals. Local policies: regional governments as regulators and enablers Across China, local governments are accelerating the development of AI healthcare ecosystems through co- ordinated policies, physical infrastructure and service platforms. Regional strategies increasingly emphasise

cross-disciplinary innovation, industrial clustering and public-service application. Beijing: precision funding for vertical innovation Beijing’s Chaoyang District offers generous funding for AI healthcare innovation: • up to CNY10 million per project for AI-assisted drug R&D; • up to CNY5 million for the development of AI diag - nostic platforms; and • up to CNY10 million for intelligent medical device R&D, including surgical robots. Additionally, the government supports dedicated industrial parks offering rental subsidies and profes - sional services, including start-up incubation, sce - nario-based testing, investment matchmaking and IP management. These parks function as launchpads for commercialising AI solutions in real-world clinical settings. Shenzhen: incubation and application platforms In Shenzhen’s Longgang District, the local gov - ernment launched the city’s first “AI + Life Health” industrial park, offering rent-free spaces for small and micro-enterprises. The district also introduced a Health Innovation and Transformation Center, foster - ing partnerships between hospitals, universities and enterprises. A new digital platform, “Longgang Family Doctor”, applies AI to personal health monitoring and chronic disease management, providing accessible, on-demand health services for residents. Other regional initiatives Hainan focuses on AI-enabled clinical trials using real- world data, capitalising on its free trade port policy. Chengdu and Suzhou have invested in AI biomedi - cal parks that integrate device R&D, testing labs and regulatory support. These local ecosystems are driving the transformation of AI healthcare from concept to scale, with regions acting as both regulators and incubators.

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