The global market is undergoing a major “cognitive shift” regarding AI.

On one hand, there are soaring numbers. Nvidia became the first company in history to surpass a USD4.3 trillion market cap. The Nasdaq index, driven by the boom in computing power, rose to a record high of 26,000 points.

On the other hand, there is sober scrutiny. Investment giants such as Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, have warned of a bubble: with hundreds of billions of dollars poured into algorithms and models, the industry’s return on investment (ROI) is raising uncomfortable questions.

While global tech giants are locked in a fierce scramble for model parameters and GPUs, one Chinese company is taking a different approach, choosing to move nimbly and gain an early lead in AI applications.

From its AI G.O in cultural tourism to its four AI-powered pharmaceutical achievements showcased at the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo in Boston, Fosun is positioning itself to realize the value of AI.

This series of actions reflects an exceptionally clear-eyed and disciplined business decision: when large models rapidly shift from “technological luxuries” to “digital infrastructure”, the decisive factor will no longer be the sophistication of algorithms, but the depth of application scenarios.

Thirteen Months Saved: How Did the Pharmaceutical Industry Shorten the R&D Cycle?

Pharmaceutical R&D is Fosun’s most important frontier for AI applications. For years, the pharmaceutical industry has faced a harsh reality: on average, it takes ten years and around US$1 billion to develop a new drug, with a success rate of less than 10%. AI is beginning to change this paradigm.

In March 2026, Henlius’ independently developed next-generation rHuPH20 excipient injection was granted clinical approval in China. At its core, the product leverages the next-generation hyaluronidase Henozye^®.

The success of Henozye^® is inseparable from the deep involvement of AI. With the support of Henlius’ “AI for Science” platform, an R&D cycle that once took 18 months has been shortened to just 5 months.

These 13 months saved represent far more than a reduction in R&D spending.

In the pharmaceutical field, speed itself is a source of competitive advantage. It means that when a project enters clinical trials more than a year earlier, it not only brings new options to patients but also secures a leading position in the market.

Beyond individual breakthroughs, there is a systematic, comprehensive strategy. At this year’s Bio-IT World Conference & Expo in Boston, Fosun Pharma showcased four practical AI achievements. These achievements are not a simple aggregation of scattered tools, but a systematic AI capability that Fosun Pharma has built around its PharmAID^® Pharmaceutical Intelligence Platform, guided by its “All in AI” strategy.

As a key platform underpinning Fosun Pharma’s R&D digital and intelligent transformation, PharmAID^® deeply integrates proprietary data, domain models, AI agents, and automated workflows, gradually transforming AI from a single-point efficiency-enhancing tool into a systemic capability covering R&D decision-making, early-stage discovery, clinical research, and data governance.

The first change is the efficiency enhancement in decision-making. As the decision intelligence agent within the PharmAID^® platform, PharmaSight focuses on high-value scenarios such as R&D intelligence, pipeline assessment, competitive landscape, and patent risk. Built on pharmaceutical-specific data and multi-agent collaboration, it delivers dynamic insights and decision support. Compared with general-purpose large models, PharmaSight offers greater domain specificity, accuracy, and traceability in vertical pharmaceutical scenarios, significantly improving intelligence accuracy and increasing the efficiency of information extraction in existing scenarios. For new drug pipeline decisions that often involve hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, this means scientists and managers are shifting from a traditional experience-driven approach to more precise, transparent, and verifiable evidence-based decision-making.

In early-stage R&D, Astrolabe focuses on building multimodal drug development capabilities, connecting key aspects such as model prediction, experimental validation, and data feedback, and exploring a “dry-wet closed-loop” R&D iteration model. By evaluating molecular designs, target hypotheses, and experimental pathways in a virtual space in advance, Astrolabe helps research teams identify opportunities earlier and eliminate risks more quickly, providing more efficient and evidence-based decision support for subsequent experimental design.

In the clinical research phase, MedAlkaid transforms clinical expert experience into reusable and iterative digital capabilities. As an intelligent platform for clinical research scenarios, MedAlkaid continuously expands its capabilities across protocol design, protocol review, data management, statistical analysis, and evidence verification. Specifically, in the intelligent review module for clinical research protocols, the platform leverages multi-agent collaboration to conduct structured analysis, logical verification, risk identification, and evidence prompts on research protocols, assisting research teams in improving the standardization, completeness, and consistency of protocol design. Clinical research processes that once relied heavily on expert experience are gradually being transformed into a set of continuously evolving intelligent capabilities.

Finally, there is the data foundation that supports the continuous evolution of AI. AquaVista, a clinical R&D data lakehouse, connects many heterogeneous systems in clinical research to build a standardized, traceable, and governable data infrastructure. Fosun Pharma recognizes that the ceiling on AI capabilities is set by data quality. The construction of AquaVista not only provides “fuel” for AI, but also helps drive R&D management from post-event reporting and passive compliance to real-time insight and proactive risk control.

PharmaSight enhances decision-making quality, Astrolabe accelerates early research iteration, MedAlkaid streamlines clinical processes, and AquaVista strengthens the data foundation. Together, these systematic AI application capabilities are enabling PharmAID to transform AI from a “showcase technology” into a “real-world productivity”.

From G.O Services to Insurance Risk Management: The Evolution of AI in Global Industries

The shortened R&D cycle in pharmaceuticals is only one illustration of Fosun’s application logic. This logic of doubling down on specific scenarios and tackling real pain points is spreading like ripples across Fosun’s global footprint, turning core service capabilities into assets.

In global cultural tourism, Fosun Tourism Group (FTG) has “digitally revamped” the signature service that Club Med has refined over the past 76 years. To allow G.Os to focus more fully on enhancing the guest experience, FTG has launched “AI G.O”, leveraging AI to take care of the cumbersome procedural service needs that guests may encounter during their stay, and to recommend experiences of interest based on each guest’s preferences. This allows Fosun to transform the non-standard expertise of its top G.Os into digital assets.

AI G.O not only provides instant responses to guest enquiries, but also harnesses AI to deliver personalized services across the entire guest journey from pre-sale to post-trip, accurately matching each guest’s needs. Fosun is leveraging AI to turn labor‑intensive work, marketing know‑how and operational expertise into low-cost, infinitely scalable AI digital productivity that is available 24/7.

In global insurance, Fidelidade has demonstrated how AI can penetrate the underlying logic of traditional finance. Currently, its digital user base is approaching 22% of Portugal’s total population. Through automated claims processing and precise risk identification, its large model is enabling this century-old insurance company to achieve a qualitative leap from “passive payouts” to “proactive risk management”.

Not Reinventing the Wheel, but Building the Vehicle, How is Fosun Taking an Early Lead in AI Applications?

Faced with the AI wave, Fosun’s strategic positioning is crystal clear. It does not aim to be a developer of foundational large models, but rather to be an industry leader in AI applications. So where does Fosun’s confidence come from?

The real answer lies in the depth of its application scenarios across multiple industries and the proprietary data it has accumulated globally.

As the second half of the AI competition begins, the logic of competition is set to change. Model capabilities are evolving rapidly, but the real value lies in “industry data” that general-purpose large models do not have access to. This is where Fosun’s ecosystem advantage across pharmaceuticals, cultural tourism, consumer business, and insurance comes into play.

General-purpose large models may understand general medical knowledge, but they can never capture the hard-earned lessons behind laboratory failures. They may understand tourism trends, but they do not know the real-world interactions between nearly 25,000 G.Os and millions of families worldwide.

This proprietary data, accumulated across various industries and borders, form the most fertile ground for the era of AI applications. For pure tech companies, these real-world scenarios are insurmountable barriers; but for Fosun, this is precisely the best opportunity to harness global general-purpose models to strengthen its industrial expertise. By combining “advanced models + proprietary data”, AI is finally becoming an intrinsic part of the business.

As Xu Xiaoliang, Co-CEO of Fosun International, said: "For enterprises, AI is not a choice, but a necessity. The value of AI lies in rooting it into concrete industry scenarios and solving real business pain points.”

From Efficiency Tools to Survival DNA: The Underlying Restructuring of Business in the AI Era

Building on this logic, Fosun is embarking on a transformation from “business + AI” to “AI + business”.

“Business + AI” is an improvement, aimed at increasing efficiency and “doing things right”, whereas Fosun’s pursuit of “AI + business” is a revolution, a fundamental restructuring. It requires rebuilding every business process and value creation node from the ground up. The value here is no longer about gaining a marginal edge over industry peers, but about redefining the rules of competition through AI.

This is not just a business transformation, but also an organizational advancement. Fosun is committed to building an “AI-led AI organization”, shifting its management focus from simply managing talent to leading a community of “human-machine collaboration”. By engraving “AI First” into the organization’s DNA, Fosun is laying the foundation for long-term resilience in global competition.

As the global market moves from a computing power frenzy to value reckoning, only applications that are rooted in industry and address pain points can offer true “certainty” in the AI era.

Fosun’s early lead comes from leveraging its multi-industry, global footprint to build depth in AI applications. In this technological transformation, Fosun’s goal is clear: embrace the ecosystem and cultivate deep scenario expertise. By harnessing the best AI models, together with real-world data and deep scenario expertise, Fosun can deliver AI applications that truly make an impact.