What happened: Ping An Good Doctor, a leading online health care service provider in China, plans to build hundreds of thousands of unstaffed clinics across the country over the next three years. Each AI-powered clinic, which is said to be about the size of a telephone booth, is capable of providing consultation based on health-related data collected through text and voice interactions. The information gathered from the AI consultation will be reviewed by a human doctor who then gives diagnosis and prescription online.
Why it’s important: Ping An Good Doctor app is an online healthcare platform operated by Ping An Healthcare. The online healthcare platform’s IPO debuted in Hong Kong in May. The unmanned clinics would help further expand Ping An Good Doctor services in China’s rapidly growing internet health care market, which is expected to reach RMB 100 billion ($14.4 billion) by 2025.