In Depth: China’s Hospitals Are Turning Patient Data Into a Cash Cow

Patient files, lab results and medical scans used to sit dormant in hospital archives once a treatment was concluded. Now, they are being mined amid a digital gold rush.

Across China, hospitals are beginning to monetize their vast troves of patient records, turning clinical data into a lucrative commodity. Driven by a government mandate to unlock the economic value of data, these institutions are feeding the country’s booming medical artificial intelligence (AI) industry. But transforming highly sensitive personal information into a tradable asset is testing the limits of privacy laws, forcing hospitals and regulators to invent compliance standards on the fly.