Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba, has announced major enhancements to its AI-powered ecosystem for the healthcare industry. We are now implementing these innovations on the ground across seven large hospitals and healthcare institutions in China. These facilities are in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Ningbo. This new move continues Ant Group’s battle using AI technology to improve service delivery in the healthcare industry.
The integration of AI into healthcare by Ant Group is facilitated by a strategic decision to utilize a combination of Chinese and U.S.-made semiconductors. Such an approach maximizes the efficiency of AI model training. Perhaps more remarkably, it saves costs and time by a much wider margin. To expand its chip supply source, Ant Group now includes Advanced Micro Devices and homegrown Chinese chip suppliers. This strategy has the added benefit of reducing its reliance on any one vendor. This diversification strategy is important to ensure we have a reliable supply chain to prevent an anticipated shortage or other disruptions.
Ant Group has reduced their computing costs by 20% by adopting lower-cost hardware. This is a key policy shift that makes it significantly cheaper to train its Models of Excellence (MoE). The company's healthcare-specific AI model, which leverages DeepSeek's R1 and V3 models, Alibaba's Qwen, and Ant's own BaiLing, is capable of addressing medical inquiries and enhancing patient services. These capabilities are crucial to delivering value by making our health care services more efficient and effective.
In addition to being a strong player in the tech industry, Ant Group runs Alipay, one of China’s top mobile payment platforms. The coalition’s new foray into healthcare AI demonstrates its commitment to using tech outside of financial services. All of these moves are intentional to create a pivotal moment in the healthcare industry.
Ant Group has accomplished amazing things, but they seem to be playing close to the vest on the details. In turn, they refused CNBC’s request for comment on the matter. This reticence raises more questions than it answers about the longer term consequences of their growing AI forays into healthcare.
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