Pakistani university eyes first AI hospital with Chinese firm
Riphah International University is seeking to establish Pakistan’s first AI hospital through a strategic partnership with Chinese healthcare technology company Tairex, developer of the Agent Hospital system incubated at Tsinghua University’s Institute for AI Industry Research. The proposed collaboration would integrate AI into medical education, clinical diagnosis, research and patient follow-up, using virtual patients for training and AI-assisted tools to support doctors’ decisions. The initiative aligns with Pakistan’s National AI Policy 2025 and aims to address healthcare challenges, including limited public funding and unequal access to medical facilities, while keeping human doctors responsible for clinical decisions.
A Pakistani university is seeking to establish what it hopes will be the country’s first artificial
intelligence (AI) hospital through a partnership with a Chinese healthcare technology
company, China Economic Net (CEN) learned at a event in Beijing on Oct 21.
Li Zheng, chief marketing officer of Tairex, said the company was developing a strategic
partnership with Riphah International University, which hopes to introduce Tairex’s Agent
Hospital system to Pakistan.
The proposed cooperation would cover medical education, clinical diagnosis and research,
including the use of virtual consultation rooms to train medical students and doctors, AIassisted clinical decision-making, and patient follow-up studies, CEN reported.
In a video message at the event, Riphah Chancellor Hassan Muhammad Khan expressed
strong interest in the partnership, praising the Chinese company’s technical capabilities and
its focus on practical healthcare challenges.
“Together, we shall explore how AI can serve primary care, medical education and research,
and build a new model of healthcare,” Khan said.
Tairex, an AI healthcare company incubated by Tsinghua University’s Institute for AI Industry
Research (AIR), has developed Agent Hospital, a system that uses virtual patients to train
medical professionals and AI doctor agents to assist physicians in real-world clinical settings.
The system is designed to support, rather than replace, human doctors, who retain
responsibility for medical decisions.
The potential partnership comes as Pakistan faces persistent challenges in healthcare delivery.
According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2025–26, the country’s health sector continues to
face limited financial resources and unequal access to healthcare facilities.
Public health expenditure accounted for just 0.8 percent of GDP in fiscal 2024–25.
Pakistan has also identified healthcare as a priority for AI adoption under its National AI Policy
2025, with medical record digitisation and telemedicine among the targeted applications.
Riphah has already begun incorporating AI into medical education. In August, the university
conducted a three-day training programme in Islamabad for health sciences faculty, covering
AI applications in clinical practice, research and teaching.
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