How West China Hospital Showed APEC That Digital Dentistry Is in Clinical Use

Sichuan University’s West China Hospital of Stomatology used its July 26 APEC Digital Week visit to demonstrate a practical point: China’s digital dentistry is being applied across clinical care, education, remote delivery and commercialization. Delegates from Singapore, South Korea, Brunei and Hong Kong did not simply watch presentations; they used simulation equipment and viewed AI-enabled workflows at the hospital’s IDEA Future Learning Center. 24

A hands-on demonstration rather than a technology showcase

At the learning center, visitors experienced virtual-simulation and AI-based dental platforms, including digital orthognathic-surgery planning, an orthodontic platform, head-and-neck tumor surgical robotics, and AI-assisted imaging and pathology demonstrations. 4

One of the most visual demonstrations was augmented-reality oral-surgery navigation. Reporting described headsets that overlay anatomical structures such as bone, nerves and blood vessels on a simulated surgical field, along with an implant’s planned depth and angle. The system was presented as a market-approved AR oral-surgery navigation product already in continuous use. 17

This mattered because it gave delegates a way to assess the technology through interaction. A virtual patient and simulation environment can make surgical planning and training visible to a visitor without turning the visit into a claim that autonomous systems replace clinicians.

AI was presented as part of the clinical workflow

The hospital also emphasized AI tools intended to assist, rather than replace, clinical work. Its multimodal dental model, Huaxi Dental Intelligent Connect, is described as covering functions including triage, image interpretation and medical-record generation; it has also been selected as a National Health Commission medical-AI innovation and practice case. 129

For orthodontics, hospital representatives said AI-assisted diagnosis can reduce a conventional initial workflow of roughly 30 minutes to less than one minute. 15 In pathology, the hospital presented HXDental-PathAI as a clinical-grade multimodal oral-pathology model, reporting 98.15% overall sensitivity for distinguishing benign, malignant and suspicious lesions. 15

Those figures illustrate the hospital’s efficiency argument, but they should be read in context: the supplied materials are event and institutional reports, not independent peer-reviewed evaluations of clinical outcomes. The strongest evidence from the visit is that the systems were demonstrated within real clinical and training settings—not that every performance claim has been externally validated.

The signal of routine deployment: scale beyond one room

The hospital supported its claim of deployment with operating-scale figures. It reported that its smart diagnosis-and-treatment system serves more than 1 million patient visits annually and that its 5G remote platform reaches more than 3,000 medical institutions nationwide. 515

That combination changes the story from a high-tech demonstration to a service model. A remote network can extend specialist support beyond the main hospital, while AI-supported imaging and digital records can help make workflows more consistent across sites. China National Radio reported that oral CT data from remote areas can be sent through the cloud for AI-assisted preliminary screening. 26

The same infrastructure was shown across other functions:

• Education: an AI-plus national virtual-simulation center is used to give students immersive clinical-learning scenarios. 513
• Research and operations: the hospital reported deploying multi-omics databases, an AI molecular-target screening platform and intelligent medical-record quality controls. 5
• Industry translation: it reported cumulative commercialization and technology-transfer value exceeding RMB 100 million. 5

Why the hospital called it the “West China solution”

The core proposition was not a single headset, robot or large model. It was an operating loop: data supports AI, AI assists clinical work, and clinical use generates feedback for further data and algorithm improvement. 1

That loop is paired with three institutional platforms for shared digital clinical services, talent development, and innovation incubation. 20 In other words, the model seeks to connect data governance, clinical adoption, training, remote delivery and commercialization. This is why it was presented as potentially replicable: other systems could adapt the architecture even if they use different devices or models.

There is also a defined route from research to productization. The China Dental Valley–West China Hospital collaboration, for example, has used a joint innovation-transfer mechanism to match company technology needs and research outputs with funding, prototyping and market-oriented development. By mid-2026, 22 research-transfer projects had been contracted through the initiative. 18

What APEC delegates were being asked to take away

The APEC visit framed digital oral healthcare as a regional cooperation opportunity: share experience in data governance, technical development and clinical implementation, then expand access to specialist capability through training and connected care. 19

West China Hospital says its digital dental technologies have reached 40 Belt and Road partner countries, alongside plans for continued international technical training. 25 That does not by itself prove the model will transfer seamlessly across health systems. Regulations, data rules, clinical standards and local infrastructure will determine what can be replicated.

But the July 26 demonstration made a credible, narrower case. Delegates could see the components operating together—from virtual patients and navigation tools to AI-supported diagnostics, high-volume services and a national remote platform. The hospital’s claim was that digital dentistry becomes scalable when these components are built into the everyday health-system workflow, not when they remain isolated innovations. 15