（Singapore, 11.02.2026）Nearly five years after its blockbuster IPO was halted, Ant Group is charting a new path for growth — and this time, it’s betting on artificial intelligence in healthcare.
Backed by billionaire Jack Ma, the fintech giant that revolutionized digital payments in China is now positioning healthcare as the company’s next major growth engine. What started as a mobile payments service has evolved into one of China’s largest investors in medical AI, developing software that answers patient questions and connects them with doctors, pharmacies and insurance services.
In November, Ant elevated its healthcare division to the same strategic level as Alipay and its lending operations. The move signals how central healthcare has become to the company’s future.
From Fintech Leader to Health-Tech Challenger
“In our first decade, Ant focused on making payments easier. The second was about inclusive finance,” said Zhang Junjie, head of Ant’s healthcare unit. “Now, we hope helping people live healthier lives can drive our next decade.”
After years of focusing on consumer lending, wealth management and insurance technology, Ant now believes AI-powered healthcare could unlock its next wave of growth. The company aims to reach most of China’s 1.4 billion population with AI health services within three years.
China’s online healthcare market was valued at about 480 billion yuan (S$87.7 billion) in 2025, according to research firm AskCI. With hundreds of millions already using digital health services, the opportunity is enormous but competition is intense.
Ant’s push into healthcare is not entirely new. Alipay began handling hospital payments more than a decade ago, allowing users to settle medical bills digitally. Today, more than 800 million users have linked their basic medical insurance information to the app. This gives Ant a strong foundation to expand healthcare services on a platform that people already use daily.
Still, healthcare presents a different set of challenges compared to financial services. Many digital health companies in China have expanded quickly but struggled to generate sustainable profits. Analysts say monetization will be the key hurdle, as highlighted in reporting by Bloomberg.
“Past tech giants often failed to find a profitable model beyond advertising or selling health products,” said Ming Yii Lai, a senior consultant at Daxue Consulting. “Achieving sustainable monetization will be the key.”
AI Doctor Avatars Take Center Stage
At the heart of Ant’s strategy are its “AI Doctor Agents” — digital avatars trained by real physicians to handle routine medical inquiries.
More than 1,000 doctors have contributed to training these avatars using written responses, consultation notes, videos and audio recordings. The avatars can answer common health questions, collect patient histories and flag urgent cases for human review.
Importantly, the system does not replace doctors. Diagnoses and prescriptions remain human decisions.
“Diagnosis and prescriptions must remain human decisions,” said Fan Haining, a liver specialist practicing in Qinghai province. “The responsibility always lies with the doctor.”
Shanghai obstetrician-gynecologist Duan Tao has seen how effective the technology can be. While he personally sees about 20 patients each morning, his digital counterpart answered more than 700,000 questions from 160,000 people within six months.
Last year alone, Ant said its AI doctor avatars handled more than 27 million inquiries.
In June, Ant launched an AI-powered health app called AQ. The app aggregates health data, answers general medical questions and allows users to book consultations, purchase prescription drugs and pay using insurance through Alipay.
Rather than diagnosing illnesses directly, AQ connects users to a network of more than 5,000 hospitals and 300,000 licensed physicians.
The app has gained rapid traction. Since early December, it has ranked as the most downloaded medical app on iPhones in China, according to research platform Diandian.com. AQ now has about 30 million monthly active users who submit roughly 10 million health-related questions each day.
Ant says its AI models are trained using curated medical materials — including clinical reports, medical images and pharmaceutical data — rather than scraped internet content. An internal ethics committee oversees the development and deployment process to safeguard privacy and accountability.
Fierce Competition and Uncertain Profit Path
Despite its early success, Ant faces stiff competition. Rivals including Tencent, DeepSeek and Ping An Healthcare are expanding aggressively in medical AI. Even Alibaba Group — an affiliate company — is investing heavily in generative AI technologies.
China’s digital healthcare market is growing fast. Online pharmacy sales, for example, have surged from 19 billion yuan (S$3.5 billion) in 2020 to an estimated 87 billion yuan (S$15.9 billion) in 2025, according to AskCI. Government policies have also become more supportive, with regulators issuing guidance encouraging broader application of medical AI and exploring reimbursement mechanisms.
China has about five million doctors, but training and expertise vary widely across regions. Some industry experts believe AI could help standardize basic care and ease pressure on the healthcare system.
“If AI can help standardize basic care, that could be beneficial,” said David Feng, CEO of healthcare information startup NoCode.
Still, questions remain about whether Ant can turn its healthcare ambitions into sustainable profits. The company has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into digital healthcare but has not disclosed revenue or profit figures for the business.
Analysts warn that China’s tech landscape moves quickly.
“Competition is so fierce in China,” said Ruby Wang, founder of consultancy Lintris Health. “Just because one app is at the top now doesn’t mean it will stay there. Others are copying as fast as they can.”
For Ant Group, the stakes are high. After reshaping digital payments and consumer finance, it is now attempting to transform healthcare through artificial intelligence. Whether this bet becomes its next growth engine or another costly experiment will likely define the company’s next decade.
