The 2026 Guangzhou Medical and Health Industry Expo opened in Guangzhou on August 21 and ran until August 23. As China’s first full-industry-chain professional healthcare expo led and coordinated by health authorities, the event not only showcased new medicines and medical devices, but also focused on linking clinical demands from hospitals, innovative corporate R&D outcomes and global markets effectively.

At the exhibition venue, all 50 Grade A tertiary hospitals in Guangzhou brought forward more than 300 clinical demands, shifting from mere visitors to problem setters driving medical innovation. A batch of new platforms for international medical services and healthcare big data were launched, alongside dedicated medical AI models and intelligent medical assistants.

These shifts reveal that medical innovation in Guangzhou is breaking out of exhibition halls to form closer ties with clinical practice, patient services and industrial governance. Below are the noteworthy changes along this trajectory.

International Medical Services: From Fragmented Single-point Services to Systematic Ecosystem Building

Guangzhou has accelerated the layout of international medical services throughout this year. In March, Guangdong unveiled its first batch of 25 pilot hospitals for international medical services, 17 of which are based in Guangzhou. In April, Guangzhou established the International Medical Tourism Service Center and rolled out 12 innovative supporting policies.

During this expo, the International Medical Service Management Branch under the Guangzhou Hospital Association was inaugurated, while the Guangzhou Cross-border Medical Payment Platform, Guangzhou International Medical Tourism Platform and matching products went online. Guangzhou’s international medical sector is evolving from isolated business trials at individual hospitals into a collaborative system involving multiple government departments and institutions.

“We can clearly feel that our city’s international medical brand reputation has risen sharply worldwide, and investors are highly optimistic about Guangzhou’s healthcare market,” shared Sun Jia, Director of the International Medical Center at Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University.

Sun Jia explained that just three months after the launch of the International Medical Tourism Service Center in late April, overseas patients treated at the hospital came from 133 countries and regions, up from 90. The number of overseas patients surged more than 30% year-on-year to 260,000 in the first half of the year.

“More international patients seeking treatment means supporting services must keep pace,” Sun Jia said. Previously, overseas patients relying on medical insurance payments had to go through cumbersome third-party intermediaries. To resolve this service bottleneck, Guangzhou coordinated government departments, banks, insurance firms and other financial institutions to launch cross-border medical insurance settlement services. Overseas patients now enjoy upfront-cost-free, cardless one-stop settlement for much greater convenience.

“Moving forward, we hope to leverage international medical platforms to promote Guangzhou’s high-end, sophisticated medical products and technologies to a broader global audience,” Sun Jia added.

The Hong Kong & Macao Drug and Device Access Scheme expands cross-border medical services from a pharmaceutical supply perspective. As of June 2026, Guangzhou had 26 designated medical institutions under the scheme, with 135 types of Hong Kong and Macau-sourced medicines and medical devices introduced, benefiting over 12,000 patients.

The appeal of Guangzhou’s international medical sector also rests on its supply of innovative drugs and clinical technologies. Yang Jun, Vice President of Government Affairs and Market Access at CanSino Biologics, noted that Evoxitimab, the firm’s self-developed innovative antibody drug, recently obtained approval for a new indication as first-line combination chemotherapy for advanced squamous non-small cell lung cancer, with relevant academic research published in The Lancet, a top international medical journal. Another domestic anti-tumor innovative drug Cadonilimab has drawn strong overseas interest, with international patients traveling specifically to Guangzhou to receive treatment with the therapy.

Yang Jun stated that a persistent industry challenge after new therapies launch is ensuring timely uptake by clinicians and early access for patients. The Guangzhou Medical Expo connects governments, hospitals, enterprises and patients, creating a dedicated matching channel for innovative medicines to enter clinical practice.

Artificial Intelligence Embedded Across the Full Chain of Medical Innovation & Patient Services

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly penetrating every link of technological R&D, translational research, clinical deployment and population health management.

Jin Chunlin, Director of the Shanghai Center for Health Development Research, observed that Guangzhou’s 50 tertiary hospitals submitted over 300 authentic clinical demands covering 12 core tracks including intelligent imaging diagnosis and rehabilitation robots. Hospitals have transformed from passive visitors to active problem proposers.

“Enterprises no longer need to guess clinical requirements; they can match solutions directly against formal demand lists,” Jin Chunlin commented. This model of hospitals defining clinical pain points and enterprises developing targeted solutions marks a shift in medical innovation from technology-supply-driven to clinical-demand-driven.

At present, the second round of Guangzhou’s “Challenge-Based R&D Program” has selected 40 specialized medical AI models and intelligent agents. The Sui Medical Intelligent Engine, Guangzhou’s municipal AI empowerment center for healthcare, has integrated eight industry-specific AI models and intelligent applications covering auxiliary imaging diagnosis and chronic disease risk assessment.

Hu Yan, National Regional Market Access Director at BeiGene, said centralized matchmaking between research platforms, medical universities, affiliated hospitals and biotech firms cuts down corporate costs of identifying partners and accelerates real-world translation of scientific achievements.

AI is also expanding into grassroots primary care. At Longtan Health Center in Conghua District, Guangzhou, AI medical assistants are deployed for medical record generation, clinical reference guidance, rational medication alerts and medical quality control. Huang Yanjun, Deputy Director of the health center, reported that doctors now complete a medical record in just 2–3 minutes, down from over 10 minutes previously. For elderly patients with multiple co-morbidities, the system delivers differential diagnosis references and tiered medication guidance.

Digital Transformation Upgraded to City-level Unified Healthcare Data Infrastructure

At the August 21 launch event for Guangzhou’s digital and intelligent healthcare achievements, the Guangzhou Municipal Healthcare Big Data Middle Office was officially unveiled.

Liu Linquan, Senior Product Manager at Guangdong Yixun Technology, explained that the core mission of the big data platform is to resolve fragmented medical data, isolated business systems and the lack of high-quality standardized datasets to support medical AI. Different medical institutions operate disparate IT systems built by different vendors with inconsistent data standards; datasets covering public health, clinical services and chronic disease management are siloed across separate administrative lines, creating barriers to cross-institutional and cross-department collaboration.

The middle office adopts a lake-house integrated architecture, deploying edge computing nodes in all districts and medical facilities to connect directly to original business data sources. Four types of AI governance agents are embedded for data screening, standardized definition, mapping and inter-table relationship mining during data governance workflows.

So far, the platform has aggregated data from more than 300 medical institutions citywide, establishing foundational databases for population profiles, patient records and resident health archives, alongside specialized databases for hypertension, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, tumors and other major illnesses.

On the application side, resident health portraits built atop the middle office integrate scattered data from separate institutions including clinical visits, public health records, physical examinations and wearable smart devices. Residents receive automated health risk assessments and personalized wellness recommendations. Authorized grassroots clinicians may access patients’ full medical history, allergy records and medication logs to avoid redundant consultations and examinations.

A concurrent AI family doctor service provides 24/7 online support: AI chatbots handle routine inquiries, while complex cases are escalated to human medical staff. Follow-up management, chronic disease screening and hospital appointment booking are all accessible via a unified entry point.

The Guangzhou Municipal Health Commission stated that future work will further consolidate the city’s digital and intelligent infrastructure, iterate specialized AI models, expand real-world application scenarios and optimize the industrial ecosystem, ensuring digital healthcare benefits reach all citizens more widely and equitably to underpin the construction of a Healthy Guangzhou.

Source: Nanfang Daily