——The 4th CREATE Symposium Charts a Commercialization Path for the Future of Smart Healthcare
HONG KONG, Oct. 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — This September, experts from the medical and engineering communities gathered in Hong Kong to exchange industry insights and explore the future of healthcare innovation.
On 22–23 September, the 4th Hong Kong Clinical-driven Robotics and Embodied AI TEchnology Symposium (CREATE Symposium), organized by the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR), Hong Kong Institute of Science & Innovation, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and co-organized by Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP), was held at the Charles K. Kao Auditorium in Hong Kong Science Park.
As an international exchange platform connecting clinical medicine with cutting-edge technology, this year’s symposium was held under the theme "Road to Commercialization." It brought together nearly 300 participants, including experts and scholars, hospital leaders, leading clinicians, and investor representatives from related industries. Focusing on clinical pain points in specialties such as interventional pulmonology, otorhinolaryngology, ultrasound imaging, and sleep medicine, the event featured frontier technology presentations, a Hospital Presidents’ Roundtable, a MedTech Venture Capital Pitch Session, thematic breakout discussions, a technology showcase, and an exploration of embodied-intelligence operating-room scenarios. Together, these sessions strengthened collaboration across medicine, research, industry, and investment, accelerating the translation of scientific advances into clinical practice.
Group photo of invited guests
At the opening ceremony, Prof. Hongbin LIU, Director of CAIR; Terry WONG, Chief Executive Officer of Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation; Chuang ZHANG, General Manager of China Resources Healthcare Group Limited and President of China Resources Medical Holdings Company Limited; Yinxing HAO, Executive President of HKISI, CAS; Pin LVU, Deputy Director of the Institute of Automation, CAS; and Jian LIU, Chief Executive Officer of MGI Tech Co., Ltd., delivered remarks. Their remarks set the tone for two days of clinically driven exploration into the future of embodied intelligence in healthcare.
CARES 4.0 Officially Unveiled, Advancing Medical AI into the AI Agent Era
At the symposium, CAIR officially unveiled CARES 4.0, its self-developed multimodal clinical AI agent system. Built on the Harness agent framework, CARES 4.0 is powered by CAIR’s self-developed multimodal medical foundation models for CT, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound, endoscopy, and electroencephalography (EEG).
Moving beyond the limitations of single-task medical AI models, CARES 4.0 is deeply embedded in hospital clinical workflows. Acting as an intelligent partner to physicians, it supports end-to-end scenarios across diagnosis and treatment, departmental management, and medical research.
At the clinical application level, CARES 4.0 has been validated in multiple Grade III Class A hospitals. In clinical diagnosis and treatment scenarios, it supports end-to-end assisted diagnosis, from patient complaints and imaging examinations to pathological assessment and final diagnosis. In department management scenarios, it enables natural-language queries, automatically summarizes information such as equipment utilization and disease distribution, and generates departmental operational reports with one click. In medical research scenarios, it can conduct multidimensional statistical analyses of disease-specific clinical datasets, train lightweight machine-learning models, and produce analytical reports that can be further refined for journal submission. The system is supported by a high-quality clinical data platform that automatically cleans, quality-checks and structures data from multiple hospital sources, building a robust data foundation for continuous AI iteration.
The CARES 4.0 official website is now live. Its framework and general-purpose toolkits have been released, while medical toolkits are being rolled out progressively. CAIR’s self-developed open-source models for ultrasound and surgical video will also be integrated into the platform and made freely available to the public.
Driven by Clinical Needs, Hong Kong and Shenzhen Hospital Leaders Explore Pathways for Medical AI Adoption
To address the practical challenges of embedding AI across healthcare systems and translating it into clinical practice, the symposium convened the "Hospital Presidents’ Roundtable." Participants included Kenneth Hing Lim TSANG, Regional CEO of IHH Healthcare North Asia and CEO of Gleneagles Hospital Hong Kong; Kenneth Man-Chee CHEUNG, President and Hospital Chief Executive of the University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital; Kin-lai CHUNG, Chief Executive Officer of CUHK Medical Centre; Linbo CAI, President of Guangdong Sanjiu Brain Hospital; Yi XIONG, Executive Director of Shenzhen Luohu District People’s Hospital; Xiquan HU, Director of the Management Committee of Lingnan Hospital, The Third Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University; and Walter Yu Hang LAM, Assistant Dean (Education and Technology Innovation), Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong.
Roundtable participants shared perspectives on several key issues surrounding the clinical adoption of AI. Private healthcare institutions considering high-value AI medical systems need to assess return on investment while balancing operational sustainability with public-health value. For cross-border deployment, medical AI must operate within clear and strict compliance requirements, while exploring data interoperability within applicable legal frameworks and taking security, compliance and operational efficiency into account. Participants also noted that building smart hospitals is fundamentally about redesigning workflows and embedding AI across diagnosis and treatment, nursing and management. Clinical adoption of AI depends on high-quality data and close collaboration between medical and engineering teams, while key challenges include defining risk boundaries and allocating responsibility in clinical scenarios, underscoring the need for multi-party risk-sharing mechanisms. In primary healthcare, AI adoption should proceed in phases, prioritising applications that improve user experience, while high-risk AI diagnostic tools require robust safety safeguards. In rehabilitation, AI can support assessment and treatment planning while reducing therapists’ workloads. Looking ahead, AI is expected to become a foundational capability in healthcare; in dentistry, for example, it can support precision diagnosis and treatment as well as at-home screening, enabling more refined oral-health management.
Deeper Integration of Medicine and Engineering Showcases Embodied-Intelligence Innovation in Healthcare
The thematic presentation sessions brought together leading international scholars at the intersection of medicine and engineering. Speakers included Sebastien OURSELIN, FREng, FMedSci, Assistant Principal (Innovation) at King’s College London; Nassir NAVAB, Member of Academia Europaea, Professor at the Technical University of Munich and Director of the Chair for Computer Aided Medical Procedures (CAMP); Yunhui LIU, Professor of Mechanical and Automation Engineering at CUHK; Hongbin LIU, Director of CAIR; Hongen LIAO, Chair Professor and Dean of the School of Biomedical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University; and Dong NI, Professor at the School of Artificial Intelligence, Shenzhen University. Drawing on research at the international frontier, they explored innovation ecosystems for medical devices and digital health, human–robot collaboration in medical robotics, AI-powered surgical robots, clinical AI agent systems and their real-world applications, AI-powered image analysis and decision-making for diagnostic and therapeutic robots, and intelligent ultrasound research and clinical translation. Their presentations offered a global perspective on emerging directions in embodied intelligence for healthcare.
Clinical speakers included Huai LIAO, Deputy Director of the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University; Dapeng LEI, Director of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at Qilu Hospital of Shandong University; Gang HOU, Deputy Director of the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at China-Japan Friendship Hospital; Xiaoyan XIE, Director of the Department of Medical Ultrasound at The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University; Guowei TAO, Director of the Department of Ultrasound at Qilu Hospital of Shandong University; and Xinwu CUI, Director of the Department of Ultrasound Imaging at Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
Other speakers included Yingjuan CAO, Director of Nursing at Qilu Hospital of Shandong University; Randolph H.L. WONG, Professor, Department of Surgery, and Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Bin ZHANG, Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology (Sleep Medicine Center) at Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University; Jiyang PAN, Director of the Sleep Medicine Center at The First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University; Yingqi XING, Director of the Department of Vascular Ultrasonography at Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University; Calvin MAK, Deputy Chief of Service and Consultant Neurosurgeon at Queen Elizabeth Hospital; and Jacky Siu-Chung TAM, Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, School of Clinical Medicine, The University of Hong Kong. Drawing on years of specialist experience, they shared frontline clinical insights across medical imaging, ultrasound diagnosis and treatment, intelligent nursing, cardiothoracic surgery, sleep medicine, vascular ultrasound, and neurosurgery.
Further research perspectives came from Zongming LI, Dean and Chair Professor, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology; Hongliang REN, Professor, Department of Electronic Engineering, CUHK; Ka Wai KWOK, Professor, Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Chee-Kong CHUI, Tenured Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore; Qi DOU, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, CUHK; and Zhongliang JIANG, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, HKU. Covering AI algorithm development, medical robotic systems, and clinical translation, their presentations illustrated the diverse ways in which medicine–engineering collaboration can advance intelligent healthcare.
Connecting Technology and Investment to Accelerate MedTech Commercialization
A MedTech Venture Capital Pitch Session focused on frontier areas of medical technology, bringing together innovative companies, research institutions, and investors to create a platform for project exchange and resource matchmaking. The judging panel provided feedback on technological barriers, clinical validation, and commercialization strategies, helping participating teams clarify routes to market and accelerate the translation of MedTech innovations into commercial applications.
Projects presented at the session spanned optical multidimensional force sensors, endoscopic surgical robots, new instruments and ancillary devices for minimally invasive surgery, large models for sleep medicine, ultrasound robots, surgical robots, surgical navigation systems, ASIC chips and active implantable medical devices, brain–computer interfaces and bionic muscles, surgical planning and simulation, and personalized orthopaedic correction and reconstruction.
Representatives from investment institutions and industry, including CD Capital, Forebright Capital, Jiuguang Capital, Allwinner Technology, Yuexiu Group, Yanghe Investment, Songhe Healthcare Fund, CICC Capital, BGI Songhe Life Science Fund, Cash Capital, and JYTH Investment attended the event and held in-depth, face-to-face discussions with entrepreneurial teams, facilitating direct matching between financing needs and investment opportunities.
Innovation Showcase Accelerates the Development of a Collaborative MedTech Ecosystem
As co-organizer of the symposium, HKSTP hosted "Empowering Founders, Enabling Growth: HKSTP’s Entrepreneurship Journey from Idea to Commercialization". Focusing on the commercialization of frontier technologies, the session provided an overview of Hong Kong Science Park’s life and health technology ecosystem and entrepreneurial community. Start-up representatives from the ecosystem shared commercialization insights and practical case studies, while cross-sector dialogue explored how strategic partnerships can enable value creation and business growth. The session provided practical examples and ecosystem support for collaboration between healthcare institutions and enterprises, as well as for translating innovation into real-world applications.
In addition, the symposium featured a technology showcase, officially titled the Corporate Showcase. Innovative companies—including Haptron Scientific, Endomotive, NeuroTrace, Hocermed, Megasense Innovation Technology Limited, and Liaoning Lokin Construction Co., Ltd.—as well as more than ten start-ups nurtured through Hong Kong Science Park’s Incu-Bio programme, showcased frontier technologies and innovations across smart healthcare, digital health, and precision medicine.
Inside CAIR’s Exhibition Hall: Exploring the End-to-End Capabilities of the Embodied-Intelligence Operating Room
At the conclusion of the event, participants visited CAIR’s embodied-intelligence operating room to view demonstrations of the CARES multimodal clinical AI agent system; diagnostic AI agents for laryngoscopy and bronchoscopy; an AI sleep system; the "EchoCare" ultrasound foundation model; a handheld ultrasound system powered by embodied intelligence; an ultrasound scanning robot; minimally invasive surgical solutions for confined spaces; a real-time medical physics simulation platform; low-field MRI for interventional procedures; and MicroNeuro, an embodied-intelligence neurosurgical robot. During the visit, guests heard technical briefings from the research and development teams and gained a deeper understanding of the core technical capabilities, clinical value, and application scenarios of each innovation. They also discussed technical bottlenecks, progress in clinical pilot programmes, and pathways to commercialization, helping intelligent diagnostic and treatment technologies overcome constraints in specific use cases and broaden their application coverage.
After two days of wide-ranging exchange, the 4th CREATE Symposium concluded successfully. Looking ahead, CAIR will continue to leverage the CREATE Symposium as a platform and work with partners around the world. With a focus on frontier areas including multimodal medical AI foundation models and embodied-intelligence robots, CAIR will continue to deepen scientific research and technology translation and commercialization, bringing more cutting-edge technologies from the laboratory into frontline clinical practice so that research advances can better support clinicians and benefit more patients.
