China’s Ant launches AI-powered health-care app, eyes global expansion

BEIJING — Alibaba-affiliate Ant Group is doubling down on health care with a new smartphone app, based on artificial intelligence technology that the company says could be rolled out overseas.

It’s the latest sign of how China-developed AI is quickly building consumer applications. Ant, operator of the popular Alipay mobile payments app, has focused much of its AI development efforts on health care based on large language models from DeepSeek, Alibaba and Ant.

In a telling sign of global aspirations, the new health-care app launched on Thursday has a straightforward English name — AQ — which stands for “answer your question,” said Zhang Junjie, general manager of health-care business at Alipay.

Users can consult AI avatars of real-life medical specialists before getting priority access for a diagnostic appointment or hospital care if the situation is serious enough, he said. AQ can tap more than 5,000 hospitals and nearly 1 million doctors in China, according to Ant.

While Ant’s focus is on the mainland China market for now, the new app or its tech could be licensed out to a third party, Zhang said, without specifying a time frame. He said many foreigners in China have already used a pilot version of the app, and that Ant plans to release versions of the app in other languages.

Chinese companies from startups to more established companies such as Tencent and Ping An Insurance have long sought to capitalize on the integration of internet and software with health care. In the last several months, U.S.-based tech giants such as Microsoft and Amazon.com have also announced progress on AI-powered health-care tools.

In China, a large data pool and nationwide emphasis on digitalization have helped provide a foundation for AI-powered health-care functions, according to a report last month from the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. It pointed out that China’s national health insurance system covers more than 95% of the country’s 1.4 billion people, while about 70% of hospitals have digital record-keeping systems.

Alipay is one of the two major mobile payments apps in mainland China. In addition to payments, the app can be used to pay the water bill, hail a taxi or order groceries from Alibaba’s supermarket chain.

The payments app has also branched into health care over the last decade, with features such as allowing users to digitally make an appointment at one of China’s notoriously crowded public hospitals, instead of having to wait in line for a ticket.

Those Alipay health-care services have already reached nearly 800 million users in China, Zhang said.

The standalone AQ app incorporates those features, along with AI-powered functions such as doctor recommendations, medical report analysis and personalized medical advice.

Alipay has expanded to users outside China, as has its mobile payments rival WeChat.

— Correction: This story was updated to reflect the correct number of users in China that Alipay health-care services have reached.