World’s First AI-based Hospital by China: Game Changer in the Health Sector
Dr. Syed Mehboob
Senior Business and Political Analyst
China is the world champion of innovation. Promotion of science and technology is at the top of its leadership’s agenda. The Chinese leadership is giving significant importance to the health sector, and recently introduced the world’s first Artificial Intelligence-based hospital. This innovation might prove to be a game-changer in the health sector. China has made quantum steps towards introducing state-of-the-art technology in the health sector, and an Artificial Intelligence-based hospital has made it the world leader in this sector.
China has planned to invest US$1,400 billion into Artificial Intelligence (AI) development projects by 2030. It is interesting to note that there are only 19 countries in the world that have a GDP US$ 1,000 billion or more, while there are 176 countries with having GDP of less than US$1,000 billion.
Tsinghua University launched the world’s first Artificial Intelligence hospital in 2024, which was named” Agent Hospital”, a concept that blends virtual Artificial Intelligence agents, clinical care, and real-world pilot deployment into one tightly integrated system. Now the vision is further extended and refined, tested and is now a reality that might prove a game changer in the healthcare sector.
Tsinghua Agent Hospital was made up of fourteen doctors upon launch. At its core is MedAgent Zero, the self-evolving Artificial framework developed by the Institute for Artificial Industry Research (AIR). In November 2024, the Zijing Artificial Intelligence Doctor was launched. Developed by a Tsinghua University spin-out start-up, Zijing Zhikang, is meant to serve as the core component in specialties, an ecosystem. The system features forty-two Artificial Intelligence doctors across twenty-one clinical specialties, covering over three hundred diseases. Furthermore, each specialty has trained its virtual agents on over ten common conditions. And finally, by creating a pool of half a million synthetic patient cases to test and evolve diagnostic accuracy. These AI doctors can treat 10,000 patients with 93% accuracy in a matter of days, a feat that would take real doctors’ years to complete. The doctors are Artificial Intelligence Systems capable of autonomously working with Artificial Intelligence-generated patients in a fully-fledged closed-loop ecosystem.
The system underwent internal testing in November of 2024, in which the closed-loop environment was used to rapidly and extensively evolve the Artificial Intelligence doctor agents. Also, internal testing enabled vast simulation and refinement using virtual patient data and clinical workflows. This enabled the system to undergo public pilot testing, which has since greatly superseded internal testing.
From ophthalmology and respiratory medicine to radiological diagnostics, Artificial Intelligence doctors take on tasks traditionally handled by their human counterparts, streamlining workflows, offering real-time recommendations, and lowering the barrier to care. Generating international attention, this move highlighted China’s Artificial Intelligence Hospital model to address physician shortages and improve healthcare access, especially in underserved regions.
The system will also serve as educational groundwork at Tsinghua. As a result, educational integration will catalyze the rise of a new generation of Artificial Intelligence collaboration physicians. The second phase expansion of Beijing Tsinghua Chang Gung Hospital, adding five hundred new beds, raising its capacity to one thousand five hundred inpatients and up to ten thousand outpatients daily. Artificial Intelligence supports nearly every step of the patient journey, from digital admissions and predictive alerts to infusion management, diagnostics, and mobile nursing stations. The hospital even partnered with the Tsinghua Academy of Arts and Design to incorporate “ healing architecture,” which means technology with cultural aesthetics for a more human-centered experience.
Another important factor in this hospital is DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence (DSAI), an open-source LLM developed in China, which has taken a localized deployment approach. Taking this approach, its models are embedded in the intranets of more than 260 hospitals across 93.5% of China’s provinces. This model ensures patient data never leaves hospital firewalls, solving major data privacy and compliance concerns. And it’s working. Cities like Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Chengdu, DeepSeek is already assisting physicians with
At Ruijin Hospital, DeepSeek handles three thousand pathological slides per day.AI Chengdu First People’s Hospital is powering telemedicine and chronic diseases management. The Jinshan Branch of Shanghai Sixth Hospital has even integrated real-time AI workstations that reduce misdiagnosis risk. The Parallel evolution of Agent Hospital and DeepSeek reflects two paths towards the same goal: scalable, sustainable, and smarter healthcare. Tsinghua’s Agent Hospital aims to build a new blueprint for integrated care, while DeepSeek is retrofitting intelligence into existing infrastructure. Both are rooted in China’s broader industrial strategy, where Artificial Intelligence isn’t simply a tool; it is a national priority of China. Health care is the most critical application, especially in the face of a growing elderly population, physician shortages, and uneven access to quality care.
Using a sophisticated network of digital agents and virtual patients, Agent Hospital can:
Simulate full patient journeys — from consultation to diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up
Train medical AI systems without risking real patients
Scale medical education and care delivery at unprecedented speeds
At the core of this system is MedAgent-Zero, an AI framework developed by Tsinghua’s AIR (Institute for AI Industry Research). This self-evolving agent improves its clinical decision-making through continuous interactions with simulated patients — without needing real-world medical data.
This enables rapid, large-scale AI learning and safe experimentation with rare or complex cases.
Agent Hospital already includes:
42 AI doctors
Operating across 21 departments, like pediatrics, cardiology, and neurology
Capable of treating 10,000 patients in days — something that would take human doctors over two years
The AI doctors reached a 93.06% accuracy rate on the MedQA benchmark, particularly for respiratory diseases — far exceeding expectations for early-stage AI deployments.
What’s more, the AI doctors have reportedly achieved a 93.06% accuracy rate on the MedQA dataset, simulating the entire process of patient care from diagnosis to follow-up.
The AI hospital includes various consultation and examination rooms, which are staffed by 14 doctor agents and four nursing agents. This set-up aims to optimise warehouse operations and enhance training for medical students by allowing them to propose treatment plans in a risk-free environment.
Liu Yang, leader of the Agent Hospital project, explained the transformative potential of this AI innovation for real-world healthcare.
The concept of an AI hospital town, where virtual patients are treated by AI doctors, holds immense significance for both medical professionals and the general public. The AI hospital aims to train doctor agents through a simulated environment so that it can autonomously evolve and improve its ability to treat disease.”
The AI hospital town could provide high-quality, affordable, and convenient healthcare services, leveraging a vast repository of medical knowledge. It can also simulate and predict medical scenarios, such as the spread of infectious diseases.
China is the world champion of INNOVATION, and we are fortunate that China is one of the best friends of Pakistan, and there is much for us to learn from China.
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