Report shows AI-empowered traditional medicine enters rapid development phase.

On October 18, at the 2026 World Traditional Medicine Conference, the "Report on Artificial Intelligence Empowering the Development of Global Traditional Medicine" was released. The report concludes that AI empowerment of traditional medicine has entered a phase of rapid development. According to the report, in the field of AI empowering traditional medicine, the number of publicly disclosed related patents worldwide since 2000 has reached 3,030, with China firmly in first place at 80.4% of disclosures and 84.2% of grants; in terms of related paper output, among SCI literature published globally since 1990, China has contributed about 47%. Intelligent four-diagnosis devices are driving the objectification and standardization of diagnostic information, AI is helping channel high-quality medical resources to lower levels through technologies such as digital twin robots, and AI-assisted in vivo imaging is providing modern scientific observational evidence for meridians... According to the report, AI is gradually being applied across multiple stages of traditional medicine, offering opportunities to overcome bottlenecks such as the difficulty of inheritance, interpretation, and standardization in traditional medicine, with broad application prospects. "Overall, AI empowerment of traditional medicine has moved beyond the conceptual stage." Qin Huaijin, Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of the Global Traditional Medicine Alliance, introduced that in this field, global governance frameworks are accelerating their formation, with major economies and regional mechanisms successively advancing traditional medicine cooperation and AI governance; technological evolution is unfolding in tandem with the development of general artificial intelligence, and application forms are moving from single stages toward collaboration covering the entire diagnosis and treatment process.