How AI and robots are reformulating traditional Chinese medicine

The spirit of the horned, quasi-historical ancestor of all Chinese now hums inside the circuits of androids.

Shennong is said to have once tasted hundreds of wild herbs to divine what heals and what harms, in addition to inventing agriculture.

For millennia since, traditional Chinese medicine has been conceived by human minds and concocted by human hands.

Legend says Shennong first devised it in the Neolithic period. It was then encoded in the foundational texts tied to the comparably semi-mythical four-faced Huangdi (Yellow Emperor) as that era drew to a close.

It was then interpreted and refined by hundreds of generations of practitioners who learned to read the quiet language of the body — the pulse, the tongue, the subtle fluctuations of qi and balance. It's a healing philosophy rooted in observation, harmony and the interconnectedness of humanity and nature.

But its traditional roots have never constrained it from branching out in new directions and blossoming in ways its creators didn't imagine — and couldn't have.

Traditional Chinese medicine's status was pretty, well, traditional when I first arrived in China two decades ago. Rather than innovation, most discussions surrounding its evolution at that time were about internationalization, with more training and treatments being offered overseas to satisfy growing global interest in its philosophies and therapies.

In the following years, I noticed more TCM enterprises and institutions declaring greater commitments to investing in R&D and promoting innovative products and practices.

For instance, our family's first experiences with acupuncture involved only needles. Now, my wife's physician connects these to a device that sends electrical pulses to better stimulate the targeted points and pathways. Anecdotally, she reports greater relief.

Likewise, beyond what is typically labeled as TCM, I've recently visited facilities undertaking research and development of other traditional medicines from Chinese regions like the Xizang autonomous region and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Such departments are proliferating in places like Xizang's capital, Lhasa, where Tibetan medicine is being updated from production methods to finished products.

And they are likewise expanding in Xinjiang's Altay, where TCM has long been integrated with Chinese Tuva and ethnic Kazak medicine. Also, Altay's unique conditions color the therapeutic practices particular to its ecotone, which ranges from white to green, Siberian to steppe, nomadic to agricultural.

Some of these R&D centers are attached to enterprises — others to universities or even museums.

But they show China's traditional health solutions aren't merely meant to be sealed away in archives or displayed behind glass. They live and breathe and grow along with us.

The herbarium is a habitat where not only plants but also ideas sprout forth.

Today, that same impulse to understand, diagnose and restore balance is assuming a startling new form, as artificial intelligence and robotic systems step into this age-old lineage, infusing binary data into TCM's botanical blends.

Where healers once read the pulse, machines now read the pattern. Where fingertips once measured ephemeral qi, algorithms measure hard data — and, remarkably, often find the same rhythms.

This is unfolding in various ways across China's innovation hubs. In Beijing E-Town, the intelligent TCM android Wang Shuhe, named after a medical expert of the late Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220) and early Wei-Jin (220-420) periods, distills the diagnostic logic of seasoned human physicians, turning years of embodied clinical intuition into accessible consultations.

In Chengdu, Sichuan province, robots and AI agents are digitizing and reconceiving classical medical frameworks, translating subjective, qualitative diagnostics into objective, quantifiable datasets.

And on one of the city's tourism streets, I was able to don a VR headset and practice tai chi under the guidance of a panda, who coached me through various moves in visually resplendent renderings of Sichuan's famous cultural and natural landmarks.

Shennong's legacy isn't merely a list of herbs. It's curiosity — a relentless drive to observe nature, to test what mends, and to adapt healing to bodies and a world in constant flux.

Huangdi's teachings were not rigid rules carved in stone, but a framework for understanding balance.

Now, robots and AI carry forward this same restless, curious spirit.

The lineage stretching from Shennong's herbal experiments, through Huangdi's foundational texts, and through generations of ordinary doctors, now stretches into the digital age — from the capillaries of leaves to the wires connecting components of machines, from mortar to motherboard, from steaming decoction to blinking server.

The prescription has changed. The impulse to heal has not.

And this kind of reformulation might be just what the doctor ordered.

Because despite all these transformations, one thing remains unchanged — us.

We are still the patients. And we still hope for the best health imaginable.

Contact the writer at erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn