In Depth: China’s Tech Giants Burn Cash to Try to Dominate AI Health Care

In China, the battle for consumer users of medical artificial intelligence (AI) has begun. In late 2025, Ant Group Co. Ltd. unleashed a blitz of advertising for its rebranded personal health assistant, called Afu, burning through hundreds of millions of yuan in a single month. By early 2026, on the other side of the ocean, OpenAI released its personal health assistant, ChatGPT Health, opening beta testing to a small group of users.