Ant Financial places a heavy bet on the 20 trillion yuan healthcare sector
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Author | Chai Xuchen
Editor | Wang Xiaojuan
On November 7th, Ant Group CEO Han Xinyi released an all-staff letter and announced an organizational upgrade: the original "Digital Medical and Health Business Unit" is officially upgraded to the "Health Business Group", and will accelerate the advancement of making the medical and health business a strategic pillar sector for Ant.
This is Ant Group's most critical organizational upgrade in recent years. After this adjustment, the newly established Health Business Group, together with the Alipay Business Group, Digital Payments Business Group, Wealth & Insurance Business Group, and Credit Business Group, constitute Ant’s five core business sectors.
This major reinvestment in the health industry signals Ant’s exploration for a new growth curve. With it, Ant has completed the AI strategic deployment in the three key areas of life services, financial services, and health services.
In fact, Ant has long been involved in the health industry. In 2014, China’s first online registration and payment; in 2019, the launch of China's first electronic medical insurance code; in 2024, acquisition of the largest domestic online consultation platform Good Doctor Online; and in the same year, pilot operation of the AI health manager AQ. Currently, medical insurance and business insurance payment services, digitalized medical treatment services, and AI medical health services constitute the three core businesses of Ant Health.
Elevating the medical health sector to a strategic height is also Ant Group’s proactive choice in exploring a new growth curve.
Analysts believe that this organizational adjustment by Ant is “a microcosm of AI technology moving from the laboratory to the deep waters of industry.” For a long time, the medical health field has been plagued by resource mismatch, complicated processes, and lack of prevention. The explosion of AI technology has made scalable, personalized, and efficient solutions possible. And this is exactly Ant’s strong suit.
First, in application, since launching a standalone app in June, its “AI Health Manager AQ” user count has been growing rapidly, becoming China’s first “industry-level professional AI app to surpass 10 million monthly active users”, validating the market acceptance of “AI + health management.”
Second, in terms of models, Ant’s medical large model has received high marks in both domestic and international medical evaluations such as Health Bench and MedBench. Furthermore, in professional fields like medical imaging and report analysis, Ant’s AI technology has also set new industry benchmarks. This means that Ant’s AI now possesses the necessary capabilities to deeply penetrate core medical scenarios.
If AI is the “engine” driving Ant, then the vast space and urgent social demand of China’s health industry is the “sea of stars” Ant is aiming for.
Industry research shows that China’s health industry market is expected to surpass 20 trillion yuan by 2025. This is a track with tremendous potential. Second, the urgent social need: China’s aging trend is generating huge demand for chronic disease management and health elderly care. Ant’s heavy investment at this time is a choice for a tech company to cope with the changing times and proactively solve social problems.
Obviously, Ant is fully prepared to enter this new 20 trillion track.
Subsequently, to ensure the stability of this strategic pillar, Ant Group also gave careful thought to personnel appointments. The newly established Health Business Group will be led by Zhang Junjie (codename Wei He) as President. He is a veteran who joined Ant in 2014, also one of the first employees of Alipay’s medical business, and has participated in leading many core businesses such as online appointment and payment, electronic medical insurance code, and Health Manager AQ.
The following is the full text of the all-staff letter:
Dear Ant colleagues:
Two updates to share: Since the independent app was launched in June, our AI Health Manager AQ’s users have been growing rapidly—it has become China’s first industry-level professional AI app to exceed 10 million monthly active users, and has risen to 7th on the China AI native applications list; Ant’s medical large model has reached a leading industry level in both domestic and international authoritative medical assessments such as HealthBench and MedBench, and has also set new industry benchmarks in medical imaging and report analysis.
In the AI era, Ant focuses on applications, anchoring the three major service sectors of life services, financial services, and healthcare services. To accelerate Ant’s development in the medical health field and make it a strategic pillar as soon as possible, on behalf of company management I announce the following organizational decisions and appointments: From today, the “Ant Digital Medical Health Business Unit” will be upgraded to the “Ant Health Business Group”, with Zhang Junjie (Wei He) appointed as Group President and reporting to me.
In the past 11 years, from the first mobile registration and payment to medical insurance code services reaching over 800 million users, Ant has always stayed true to the original intention of using technology to solve social problems.
Looking forward, AI provides a key path to solving social pain points in medical healthcare, and we will follow the direction with determination and go all out.
Han Xinyi, CEO of Ant Group
November 7, 2025
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