ZTE partners with China's National Clinical Research Center for Interventional Medicine to build a new paradigm of smart interventional medicine
ZTE and NCRCIM leverage "CardioMind" AI and full-stack computing to drive global healthcare equity
PARTNER CONTENT ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a global leading provider of integrated information and communication technology solutions, and China's National Clinical Research Center for Interventional Medicine officially signed a strategic partnership framework agreement at the ZTE China Ecosystem Partners Conference.
According to the agreement, the two parties will thoroughly implement the "AI + Healthcare" national strategy, and promote the initiative for local treatment of major illnesses (within province/county). Focusing on the field of interventional medicine, both parties will jointly explore a new paradigm for the intelligent treatment and management of the entire surgical intervention process, concentrating efforts on tackling critical challenges in technological innovation, technology dissemination, medical insurance cost control, patient rehabilitation, etc.
The collaboration aims to build an integrated innovation ecosystem that brings together medical and engineering expertise, drives digital and intelligent practices, and enhances synergy across industry, academia, research, and application, thereby promoting the high-quality development of smart healthcare.
Catalyzing Evolution of AI Healthcare Paradigm with Full-Stack Capabilities
ZTE is accelerating the construction of a technology foundation driven by "connectivity + intelligent computing". As for intelligent computing, ZTE has established full-stack solutions covering chips, servers, high-speed interconnects, cluster scheduling, and AI all-in-one machines. In the network domain, ZTE has been collaborating with operators to advance the development and large-scale deployment of key technologies, significantly enhancing compute scheduling efficiency and AI inference experiences. Regarding AI healthcare, ZTE has already launched scenario-based applications such as intelligent health checkups and AI-assisted diagnostic imaging, accumulating substantial experience in real-world application.
In this partnership, ZTE acts as a technology enabler and an ecosystem co-builder. Its full-stack ICT and AI capabilities serve as the core engine to drive the digital and intelligent transformation of the healthcare industry.
- Advancing AI healthcare from "isolated assistance" toward "systemic intelligence". Current AI healthcare applications are largely focused on isolated tasks such as image-based screening. This collaboration thus is dedicated to building an intelligent system covering the end-to-end process of "prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation". This signifies a profound paradigm shift from merely enhancing efficiency in a single procedure to reshaping the overall clinical practice and decision-making model.
- Accelerating the clinical deployment of multimodal models. Based on the world's first specialized multimodal AI model for cardiology, the partnership aims to facilitate deeper integration of AI into key clinical decision-making. Drawing upon its full-stack intelligent computing infrastructure, ZTE focuses on the engineering adaptation, product refinement, and scaled deployment of this specialized AI model. In response to key requirements such as multimodal medical data integration and high-reliability operation, ZTE provides a robust computing infrastructure and strong implementation capabilities, enabling standardized delivery of specialized healthcare AI models, rapid adoption across hospitals, and large-scale deployment of advanced AI technologies in high-stakes clinical scenarios.
Refining Specialized AI Models to Boost System Efficiency
The "CardioMind" AI model was developed under the leadership of the National Clinical Research Center for Interventional Medicine. It has been trained on more than 1.8 million real clinical cases and 300 TB of multimodal data, including images, electrocardiograms, pathology, and electronic medical records. After being launched at Zhongshan Hospital Fudan University, the model has assisted in handling over 10,000 cases with an accuracy rate exceeding 96%. This model helps reduce medical record writing time from 5-10 minutes to less than 2 minutes, and cut the preparation time for multidisciplinary consultation meetings by 70%. These metrics demonstrate that CardioMind has evolved from a cutting-edge technical concept into a mature AI system built on massive, high-quality datasets, validated in premier clinical scenarios, and capable of delivering both high diagnostic accuracy and high workflow efficiency. It has established an industry benchmark for AI integration into core clinical workflows.
By integrating ZTE's full-stack intelligent computing capabilities, the two parties will sustain collaborative research to extend the efficiency gains of CardioMind across the entire clinical process. Specifically, preoperative intelligent planning will shorten decision-making cycles; intraoperative real-time navigation and remote guidance will reduce procedural complexity and operation time; and postoperative intelligent follow-ups will enable automated routine management. These efficiency improvements translate directly into savings in labor costs and time, enabling specialist teams to concentrate on higher-value complex decisions. Moreover, by improving diagnostic accuracy of Primary Health Care (PHC) via AI and remote empowerment, this approach can effectively reduce unnecessary patient cross-regional travels caused by misdiagnosis or insufficient clinical competence, ultimately lowering the overall social healthcare costs with digital intelligence.
Promote the Downward Extension of High-Quality Medical Resources to Advance Healthcare Equity
In China, first-tier cities tend to have more access to high-quality healthcare resources. The proportion of cardiovascular patients seeking cross-provincial care stands at 15.1%, with Beijing, Shanghai, and Jiangsu collectively receiving 71.5% of such patients nationwide, reflecting varying healthcare levels across the country. Using advanced technologies to benefit a broader population has thus become a key focus of the industry. Going beyond technological research, this partnership emphasizes the capability to achieve large-scale deployment. It introduces a three-pronged approach combining "standards formulation, demonstration center, and talent mentorship" to ensure that innovative outcomes are replicable, sustainable, and scalable.
The two parties will jointly establish a digitalization demonstration center for interventional medicine, which will serve as the core platform for clinical validation, results demonstration, and application promotion of new technologies, therapies, and products. At the same time, efforts will be made to facilitate pilot projects of these innovations across research institutions and hospitals at all levels. Joint initiatives will include training programs on interventional medicine digital technologies, academic exchange activities, and the collaborative formulation of clinical guidelines, technical specifications, and training materials, thus leading the way toward standardized and regulated development of digital interventional medicine.
Moreover, both parties will explore an innovative collaboration model that takes the demonstration center as a hub and radiates outward to regional medical consortiums. Standardized and validated digital solutions of interventional diagnosis and treatment will be systematically replicated and extended to medical consortium members. This enables the rapid downward channeling and consistent delivery of top-tier technical expertise, clinical protocols, and management practices. This "hub to regional consortium" approach effectively overcomes the limitations of isolated technology promotion, systematically raises regional healthcare service capacity, and provides robust technical and systemic support for "treating major illnesses within the province".
Finally, with ZTE's global delivery capabilities spanning over 160 countries and regions, the two parties will jointly promote the digital interventional medicine innovations to the global community. The parties will also explore new models for clinical collaboration with multiple research centers across different countries, help more regions such as emerging markets to enhance their healthcare service standards, and contribute to advancing the level of interventional medicine worldwide.
This strategic partnership is not only a strong alliance between two leading industry players, but also an important milestone of China's progress in high-end AI healthcare featuring deeper technology integration, forward-looking clinical application, and wider ecosystem collaboration. Combining ZTE's "connectivity + computing" infrastructure with the clinical expertise of the National Clinical Research Center for Interventional Medicine, the two parties are jointly forging a new paradigm for smart healthcare that features technology innovation, broad accessibility, and commercial sustainability.
Moving forward, the two parties will continuously advance large model iteration, system optimization, and ecosystem expansion. The common goal is to extend the achievements and experience to more medical institutions, contributing to the high-quality development of global medicine.
Contributed by ZTE.