Ping An Good Doctor blazes trail in developing unstaffed, AI-assisted clinics in China
- China’s biggest online health care services provider plans to build ‘hundreds of thousands’ of its telephone booth-sized, AI-powered clinics and roll these out across the country in three years
Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, the founder and chief executive of technology conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp, is known for making solid bets in China’s hi-tech sector. Around 18 years ago, Son’s company invested US$20 million in a small Chinese online retail platform that rapidly grew to become e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding.
Son in July invited the heads of fast-rising Chinese companies Ping An Good Doctor and Didi Chuxing to a party he hosted in Tokyo, in a testament to how far these two firms have grown since SoftBank invested in them.
Wang Tao, the founder, chairman and chief executive of Ping An Good Doctor, acknowledged Son’s contribution amid the Hong Kong-listed online health care provider’s efforts to innovate and extend its operations outside the mainland.
“Mr Son helped us a lot in our international expansion,” said Wang in an interview with the South China Morning Post on the sidelines of the fifth World Internet Conference held earlier this month in Wuzhen, a town in China’s eastern coastal province of Zhejiang.
The overseas foray by Ping An Good Doctor, which is formally known as Ping An Healthcare and Technology Co, is part of its major expansion programme after raising US$8.5 billion in proceeds from its initial public offering in Hong Kong in May.