Alibaba's healthcare AI passes China's medical exams with senior doctor rank

The company announced on Tuesday that its model, based on the Qwen 2.5-32B foundation, reached the standard of a "Deputy Chief Physician," the fourth-highest rank in the country’s five-level medical system, across 12 major medical specialties, as reported by the South China Morning Post.

The AI system has been embedded into Quark, which now automatically activates the healthcare model when users ask medical questions. The tool has been refined in collaboration with hospitals and medical institutions, which are also beginning to adopt it in their own platforms, the company said.

Benchmark data from Quark showed the model outperformed rivals including DeepSeek’s R1 and V3 models, as well as OpenAI’s GPT-4o, in test accuracy.

People visit the booth of Alibaba.com during the 136th China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, Oct. 15, 2024. Photo by AFP

Quark, initially a search and cloud storage app, was rebranded in March as an "all-in-one" AI assistant amid intensifying competition in China’s consumer AI market. In May, the app launched a "deep search" feature to improve responses to complex questions.

The app now offers cloud storage, browsing, AI-enhanced search, image generation, writing support, and tools for summarizing and transcribing audio.

China’s major tech firms are expanding into healthcare AI.

Earlier this month, social media and gaming giant Tencent unveiled a beta version of its "Health Management Assistant," powered by its in-house Hunyuan AI model.

Meanwhile, Shenzhen-based robotics firm UBTech, known for its industrial robots, plans to launch a US$20,000 humanoid companion robot later this year to support elderly care in China.