A Chinese AI tool can manage chronic disease - could it revolutionize health care?

"A Chinese firm has developed a massive artificial intelligence-powered platform to help manage the health of people with chronic diseases. Details of the large language model (LLM), called XingShi, are sparse, but the company behind it, Fangzhou, says the model integrates speech and image recognition with natural language processing, extensive medical data and reasoning to improve personalized care and boost the productivity of clinicians."

"China, like many nations, has a high prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory disorders and diabetes. Estimates suggest that some 180 million older adults in the country live with chronic diseases, and that number is likely to increase as the population ages. There's hope that AI could help to reduce the strain that managing large populations of people with chronic diseases puts on health-care systems."

"In 2017, the Chinese government announced its intention to become the world leader in AI by 2030. Since then, hundreds of the country's universities have begun offering undergraduate degrees in AI. Government investment, in the form of scholarships and research grants, has encouraged the forging of partnerships between industry and academia. Last month, the Chinese government announced an 'AI Plus' initiative, which is intended to promote the integration of AI in a range of fields."

Fangzhou developed an LLM named XingShi that combines speech and image recognition, natural language processing, extensive medical data and clinical reasoning to improve personalized care and clinician productivity. The system has more than 50 million registered users and over 200,000 physicians using the platform. China has a high prevalence of cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disorders and diabetes, with roughly 180 million older adults living with chronic conditions and numbers expected to grow as the population ages. Government policy since 2017 aims for AI leadership by 2030 through university programs, funding, industry-academia partnerships, an 'AI Plus' initiative, tax cuts and subsidies.

Read at Nature