AI in Healthcare Moves from Hype to Daily Workflow at Shanghai Expo
At the 8th China International Import Expo in Shanghai, Haier Group's healthcare arm, Incaier, put practical AI and lab infrastructure front and center. The company returned for its sixth year, presenting more than 30 products and solutions-about 60 percent shown publicly for the first time.
The focus was clear: use AI and integrated data systems to take friction out of hospital operations, research workflows, and cold-chain logistics. For healthcare leaders, this wasn't a concept pitch-it was a working stack already live in hospitals and research sites.
Four Scenarios Driving the Portfolio
- Future research: Lab automation and high-spec instruments to speed validated outputs and maintain sample integrity.
- Future hospitals: AI-assisted management and pharmacy workflows aimed at smoother throughput and fewer process errors.
- Innovation ecosystems: Connected platforms linking biomedical, clinical, and logistics data for end-to-end traceability.
- Global localization: Solutions configured for regional standards and on-the-ground conditions.
What Stood Out
- AI hospital management and drug preparation: Already adopted in hundreds of Chinese hospitals, with an emphasis on efficiency and medication safety.
- Ultra-speed centrifuge: A domestically developed system hitting 100,000 rpm, addressing core tech constraints for high-end research labs.
- Digital blood and biosample tracking: Integrates biomedical, clinical, and logistics data to lower handoff risk and improve auditability.
Why This Matters for Care and Operations
- Throughput without chaos: AI can smooth scheduling, bed turnover, and pharmacy queueing where variability usually wins.
- Safety and compliance: Closed-loop data trails help reduce mislabeling, temperature excursions, and process deviations.
- Cost visibility: Instrument utilization and inventory signals bring waste to the surface faster.
- Staff load: Automation offloads repetitive steps so clinicians and pharmacists focus on judgment calls, not clicks.
Global Footprint
According to Incaier, its solutions are in more than 160 countries and regions, serving 100 million+ users. Installations include more than 20 ultra-low temperature freezers at UK Biobank and participation in the Africa CDC initiative to strengthen disease control capacity across 54 African countries.
Policy Context
The approach tracks with China's push for "new quality productive forces"-innovation-led growth across advanced manufacturing and medical technology. For providers, that means faster availability of domestically developed hardware and AI services built for clinical-grade reliability.
If You're Evaluating Similar Systems
- Start with a data map: where biomedical, clinical, and logistics data live-and how they'll interoperate.
- Pick one high-friction workflow (e.g., pharmacy prep or sample logistics) and run a 90-day pilot with clear success metrics.
- Validate outcomes: prep accuracy, handoff times, turnaround, and alert precision; audit with real-world cases, not just test data.
- Loop in pharmacy, lab, and IT security early; define user permissions and audit trails before go-live.
- Plan cold-chain contingencies: continuous monitoring, power failover, and service SLAs that match clinical risk.
- Measure clinician time saved and reinvest it in direct patient care or backlog reduction.
Upskilling Your Team
If your roadmap includes AI-enabled operations, a practical skills path helps adoption stick. See role-based options here: AI courses by job.
Bottom line: this is execution-focused AI-hospital-grade tools, measurable outcomes, and infrastructure built to scale across research and care settings.
Your membership also unlocks:
