AI breathes new life into China's time-honored TCM tradition

BEIJING, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- Type in a question about how different herbal medicines should be combined, and within seconds, a smartphone can display the logic behind the formula, along with the principles underpinning it.

For students studying traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), this AI tool is becoming a new kind of "digital teaching assistant," offering help beyond the classroom.

Led by Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, developers have built a large model incorporating vast TCM knowledge, including classical texts and theories, teaching materials, herbal medicines and prescriptions.

Another notable example is an embodied intelligent robot developed by this university, which is able to demonstrate traditional TCM massage techniques.

For centuries, TCM knowledge has been passed down through classical texts, apprenticeships with experienced physicians and hands-on clinical practice.

Preserving and transmitting this accumulated knowledge has long been a challenge for TCM education. Now, AI is making its way into China's higher TCM education system, opening up new methods to pass on this time-honored medical tradition.

Li Ziyuan, a doctoral student at Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, located in south China, said AI can organize ancient medical texts, analyze the clinical experience of senior TCM practitioners and assist with medication recommendations, thus shortening the learning curve for young physicians.

Huang Luqi, a TCM expert, noted that AI can systematically capture the diagnostic approaches, distinctive techniques and time-tested prescriptions of renowned practitioners from the grassroots level.

This can turn fragmented, experience-based knowledge into standardized and shareable data, helping preserve valuable local TCM expertise and pass it on to future generations, Huang, also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, added.

China inaugurated its modern higher TCM education system in 1956. Seven decades later, the country has 27 independently established undergraduate institutions specializing in TCM, while about 670 higher education institutions offer TCM-related programs. More than 800,000 students are enrolled.

As of the end of 2025, the total number of health professionals in TCM-related healthcare institutions had reached 1.236 million, up nearly 49 percent from 2020. Also in 2025, TCM medical visits made up 20.3 percent of all medical visits nationwide.

TCM diagnosis traditionally relies on four methods: observation, listening and smelling, inquiry, and pulse-taking. Practitioners combine the information gathered through these methods to assess a patient's condition and determine treatment.

AI is now being used to explore ways of digitizing these traditional diagnostic techniques.

At a TCM hospital in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, a "smart clinic" can automatically collect patients' tongue, facial and pulse information. It uses a large model to assist physicians with clinical decision-making and provide intelligent follow-up services.

AI-assisted diagnosis could make TCM diagnostic information more objective and quantifiable, reducing subjectivity in manual assessment, Huang said, noting that it could also provide references for treatment plans and help improve the precision of TCM services at the grassroots level.

China is also making AI a part of its national strategy for advancing TCM. A 2026-2030 blueprint calls for greater use of digital and intelligent technologies in TCM and the development of high-quality datasets in this field.

As AI becomes more deeply embedded in TCM education and practice, questions about the limits of the technology are becoming increasingly important.

Zhao Leyi, a student at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, said AI can make the tacit knowledge accumulated by veteran practitioners more accessible for learning and transmission, but cannot replace the core reasoning involved in TCM.

Final decisions on diagnosis and treatment must be grounded in TCM theories, therapeutic principles and the system of traditional medicinal practice, Zhao explained.

The intuitive and experience-based understanding of life phenomena accumulated by physicians over centuries deserves more systematic study, so that the wisdom of ancient medicine can be explored from new scientific perspectives, said Ji Guang, president of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.