During the 2026 Winter Davos Forum, Gong Rujing, Founder and Chairperson of YIDU TECH, stated in an exclusive interview that the long-term goal for medical AI is to build a system covering the entire value chain. She noted that the industry is still in its early stages of development, with vast prospects for the future.
As a leading enterprise in China's AI healthcare sector, YIDU TECH has already deployed relevant solutions in countries like Brunei and Singapore, with plans to further expand into overseas markets. "Life sciences are undoubtedly the vast ocean of stars. The advancement of artificial intelligence, along with the interaction between the physical world and AI, enables us to reinterpret the entire biological world," Gong Rujing expressed.
Gong Rujing explained to the interviewer that since founding YIDU TECH in 2014, the company has consistently executed its strategy centered around "Data Intelligence, Green Healthcare." "We are committed to addressing supply chain and cost issues within the healthcare sector, spanning areas such as physician time, pharmaceutical R&D, and insurance. Over the past decade, we have continuously invested in data governance and have now processed over 7 billion medical records for hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, insurance institutions, and regional platforms, accumulating invaluable practical experience." "Once data processing is complete, the data must be computable and applicable for AI. Consequently, we have invested significant resources into building an ecosystem and platform for AI applications, including R&D platforms for hospitals, diagnostic and treatment platforms, physician assistant platforms, and a 'Clinical Doctor Copilot.' Overall, we are constructing an integrated architecture of 'Big Data + Large Models + Intelligent Agents' to achieve lightweight, integrated assistance throughout the entire diagnosis and treatment process, thereby promoting 'capability co-creation' with AI." "Last year at Davos, I proposed the development of an AI Doctor Copilot. Today, in one of our partner hospitals, approximately 70% of physicians use self-created 'intelligent agents' daily to assist with various tasks such as data organization, R&D support, cancer staging, and patient management." "The second aspect involves assisting pharmaceutical companies with new drug research and development, including intelligent patient recruitment, remote monitoring, and workflow automation. AI CRO (AI Contract Research Organization) is also a key strategic focus for us." "The third area is the insurance business. We have already participated in projects like Beijing's Inclusive Health Insurance and Shenzhen's Huimin Insurance, achieving positive results. We aim to further reduce the cost of inclusive insurance, expand its coverage, and promote its sustainable development by empowering health management through AI," Gong Rujing added.
When discussing the progress of building a comprehensive medical AI value chain system, Gong Rujing candidly admitted that if maturity is scored out of 100, the current industry might only be at a "0.01" stage. This is primarily due to incomplete data from the physical world, as "many diseases are not yet fully understood." "Of course, we have made continuous breakthroughs in areas like molecular structure analysis and model building, with overall steady progress being made. The future holds the potential for exponential growth—initial development may be linear, but once the foundation is solid, explosive growth is expected to follow." She emphasized that healthcare, as a specialized sub-field of artificial intelligence, carries immense seriousness. The requirements for AI vary significantly across different scenarios, ranging from health consultations for the general public, to辅助诊断建议, to providing Copilot tools for top-tier hospitals and physicians, and even supporting the 'last mile' of new drug研发. Therefore, medical AI is fundamentally different from general-purpose large language models.
Regarding current development priorities, Gong Rujing stated that the primary task is to solidify the data platform and database products to effectively serve user needs, encompassing scenarios like the Clinical Doctor Copilot and new drug R&D. Simultaneously, medical AI is also benefiting the general public. For instance, in the "Huimin Insurance" project, AI empowerment enables claim settlements to be processed in seconds. Additionally, the company has launched initiatives like "Walk and Run" to promote public health. "The national health app we launched in Brunei already covers nearly 90% of the population, with the average user's daily step count increasing from around 2,000 steps initially to about 8,000 steps now." During the pandemic, several countries invited YIDU TECH to assist in developing AI simulation systems for infectious diseases, which validated the company's delivery capabilities. Subsequently, the company launched the national medical health application "BruHealth" in Brunei and has also collaborated with institutions like SingHealth and A*Star in Singapore. "Next, we plan to enter more Southeast Asian markets, promote the localization of our solutions, and have plans to expand into Europe. We insist on finding local partners in each region because healthcare is highly localized," Gong Rujing stated.
In Gong Rujing's view, every sub-disease area within medical AI presents significant challenges. Continuous investment and refinement are required across the board, from underlying models and medical knowledge graphs to applications on the physician side and in new drug R&D. Improving user experience takes time, which is why the overall industry remains in its early stages. The presence of numerous participants is also a reflection of the sector's healthy development. "In the end, it comes down to who can perform better. Enterprises that can create genuine value for their clients are the ones with sustainable development capabilities," Gong Rujing concluded.