Shenzhen-listed tech major eyes medical sector after its AI robot aces exam to qualify as doctor

iFlytek, a Chinese technology major specialising in speech intelligence and artificial intelligence (AI), has vowed to expand its business in new areas such as education and medical care after its intelligent robot recently cleared China’s national exam and qualified as a doctor.

Shenzhen-listed iFlytek said on Thursday its intelligent doctor’s assistant, which works similarly to IBM’s Watson, has become the first AI robot to pass the exam taken by medical students training to become licensed doctors in China.

“We have leapfrogged IBM’s Watson in becoming the first AI [robot] to qualify as a human doctor. Watson hasn’t passed such a licensing exam in the United States,” said Liu Qingfeng, the chairman of iFlytek, which is headquartered in central China’s Anhui province.

The robot, called the iFlytek Smart Doctor Assistant, achieved a score of 456, higher than the mark of 360 required to pass the Clinical Practitioner Examination.

After showing AI’s power in the exam, Liu said the company was going to use the technology, which allows machines to talk and even think like humans, to “empower the world” by starting to change the education, medical care and law industries.