Policy push

China's rapid adoption of medical AI has been driven not only by technological advances but also by strong policy support. In recent months, Beijing and national authorities have rolled out a series of initiatives aimed at accelerating innovation.

The Beijing municipal government recently issued an action plan to support AI applications in healthcare. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology followed with a special action plan promoting "AI plus manufacturing", explicitly calling for faster development of surgical robots, intelligent diagnostic systems, and advanced medical equipment.

"New policy dividends will continue to emerge this year," said Hu, the CCID deputy head.

"People online agreed that China's two hottest topics right now are commercial spaceflight and AI terminals, including medical devices," he said."The enthusiasm, however, has prompted pushback from parts of the medical community."

One of the most persistent concerns involves responsibility. In many hospitals, AI tools are already influencing diagnoses and treatment plans.

"When a system gives a clear recommendation, it's hard not to be influenced by it," said a physician at a major Beijing hospital, who was involved in the trial run and asked not to be named. "But if you override it and something goes wrong, the psychological pressure is enormous."

Patients, too, are uncertain. "We don't really understand what the machine says," said a relative of Wang who had prostate surgery. "In the end, we still rely on doctors. But if doctors are just following machines, what happens then?"

These questions become even more urgent as AI systems grow more complex and less transparent.

Peiling Yap, chief scientist at HealthAI, a Geneva-based nonprofit, said that global oversight frameworks remain fragmented — especially for AI tools developed internally by hospitals, which often fall outside existing medical device regulations.

"Responsible AI governance is not the task of a single department," Yap said. "It's a systemic challenge involving hospitals, developers, regulators, and patients."

Without coordinated progress in regulation, data governance, and infrastructure, she warned, AI in healthcare could fail to improve quality, and might even deepen existing inequalities between urban and rural regions or wealthy and underresourced hospitals.

Doctors train for new era

Chinese policymakers are acutely aware that technology alone cannot transform medicine.

Zhang Xu, director of digital health at the Beijing Medical and Health Science and Technology Development Center, said the government is focusing on AI's role in medical education and training, not just clinical care.

"Doctors' training is critically important," Zhang said. "That's why we support the construction of surgical robot training centers and the development of AI-assisted tools tailored to domestically produced equipment."

Unlike in the US, where commercial insurance plays a central role, China's health system is anchored by national insurance programs.

Zhang said policymakers are exploring ways AI could support both public insurance and emerging commercial plans, helping innovative products reach patients without driving up costs.

AI is also being deployed beyond hospitals, particularly in public health.

"We want to use AI to build intelligent disease prevention and control systems," Zhang said.

"The goal is early detection — so we can sense the arrival of dangerous pathogens before they spread," he said.

Musk's prediction of robot surgeons surpassing humans may yet prove prescient. But in China's hospitals today, the reality is far more incremental.

Robots excel at stability, endurance, and precision. AI systems can process vast amounts of data at speeds no human can match. But judgment, including ethical, contextual and deeply human, remains harder to encode.

For now, doctors are still indispensable, not only as operators of machines but as interpreters of uncertainty.

"The danger is not that AI will replace doctors overnight. It's that we may slowly forget what doctors are supposed to be able to do on their own," said Zhang Wenhong, a leading infectious disease expert and professor at Fudan University.

Qi Zichen contributed to this story.

weiwangyu@chinadaily.com.cn