In-Depth Analysis Report on Ant Group's AI Healthcare Strategic Layout

Based on the latest collected information, this report provides an in-depth analysis of Ant Group’s strategic layout in the AI vertical field (healthcare direction) and its impact on valuation and IPO prospects.

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On November 7, 2025, Ant Group CEO Han Xinyi issued a company-wide letter announcing the official upgrade of the original “Digital Healthcare Division” to the “Healthcare Business Group”, which has become one of Ant’s five core business segments (the other four segments are: Alipay Business Group, Digital Payment Business Group, Wealth & Insurance Business Group, and Credit Business Group). [1][2]

This adjustment indicates that healthcare services have achieved the same strategic priority as payment and financial services. Zhang Junjie, a “veteran” who joined Ant in 2014, has been appointed as the President of the Healthcare Business Group. [1][2]

• June 2025
  : AI Health Manager AQ launched as an independent app
• October 2025
  : Monthly Active Users (MAUs) exceeded 10 million, becoming the 5th AI-native application in China with over 10 million MAUs
• November 2025
  : MAUs exceeded 15 million, rising to 7th place on the AI-native application rankings [3][4]
• December 15, 2025
  : Brand upgraded to “Ant Fu”, with its positioning transformed from “AI Tool” to “AI Health Friend” [5]

• Over 100 functions including health consultations, medical report interpretation, and risk assessment for diseases
• Supports wearable devices from Apple and Huawei, as well as chronic disease management devices from Yuyue Medical
• Daily user inquiries exceed 10 million, with cumulative service users exceeding 100 million [5]

• Self-developed Ant Medical Large Model, relying on a professional medical corpus base with over 1 trillion tokens
• Integrates a multi-modal model with hundreds of billions of parameters and a medical knowledge graph with tens of millions of entries
• Achieved leading results in authoritative evaluations such as MedBench and HealthBench [1][4]

Ant Fu’s PC version has been upgraded with the launch of the DeepSearch function for medical professionals, marking Ant’s formation of a

dual-end layout in the AI healthcare field. [5]

• Over 1,000 doctors have launched “AI Avatars” on the Ant Fu app, providing 7×24 online responses to user consultations
• Cooperated with Haodf.com’s 290,000 registered doctors to upgrade the AI assistant toolchain
• Added a “Research Assistant” function, integrating DeepSeek technology to support literature review generation, differential diagnosis recommendations, etc. [2][6]

Resource Dimension	Scale/Capability
Healthcare Insurance Code Users	Over 800 million (China’s largest third-party healthcare insurance service platform)
Partner Hospitals	5,000
Registered Doctors	300,000+
Cumulative Platform Service Users	Nearly 900 million
Partners	Nearly 100 partners including Huawei and Alibaba Cloud [1][2][4]

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According to forecasts from Frost & Sullivan:

• 2023
  : RMB 8.8 billion
• 2025
  : Exceeds RMB 300 billion
• 2033
  : Will reach RMB 315.7 billion
• 10-Year Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR)
  : 43.1% [7][8]

Time Node	Valuation (USD 100 million)	Event/Background
July 2015	450	Series A Financing
April 2016	600	Series B Financing
June 2018	1500	USD 1.4 billion financing, Pre-IPO round
October 2020	2500-4600	Approved for STAR Market listing, investment banks raised expectations
2025	300-400	Expected independent listing of Ant International [9][10][11]

One of the core reasons for the suspension of Ant Group’s 2020 IPO was its over-reliance on “financial attributes”. The AI healthcare layout fundamentally changes the company’s business structure: [9]

• From Payment → Health Services
  : From a single payment tool to an integrated service ecosystem
• From Finance → Technology
  : Technological products such as medical large models and the AQ application strengthen “technological attributes”
• From Platform → Service
  : From a “connector” to a “deep participant”

Ant Group CEO Han Xinyi clearly stated at the Bund Summit:

[4]

Compared with general AI applications (such as Doubao, DeepSeek), Ant Fu’s differentiated advantages are as follows:

Competitive Advantage	Specific Performance
Data Barrier	800 million healthcare insurance code user data, 10 years of healthcare accumulation
Scenario Barrier	Full-link services from appointment registration → payment → claims settlement
Trust Barrier	Users in healthcare scenarios have extremely high requirements for professionalism, and first-mover advantages are difficult to replicate
Ecological Barrier	Closed-loop system connecting 300,000 doctors, 5,000 hospitals, healthcare insurance and commercial insurance [1][4]

The market’s valuation logic for fintech companies is being reconstructed:

• Traditional Financial Business
  : PE multiples are usually 5-10x
• AI Technology Business
  : PS multiples can reach 10-20x
• AI Healthcare Vertical Field
  : Due to its high barriers and growth potential, it may enjoy a higher valuation premium

The expected valuation for Ant International’s independent listing is USD 30-40 billion (300-400 in USD 100 million units). Although this is only about 1/10 of Ant Group’s historical valuation in 2020, this is mainly due to: [9][10]

1. Ant International only accounts for 20% of the group’s revenue
2. The market is generally cautious about fintech valuations
3. Independent listing requires separate compliance costs

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• On January 7, 2023, Ant Group announced that Jack Ma is no longer its actual controller
• According to regulations, the waiting period for Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing is
  1 year
  , which has now expired [10]
• In May 2025, Ant Group launched a tender offer for Bright Smart Securities through its subsidiary, reigniting rumors of a backdoor listing (but its feasibility is considered low) [10]

• July 2023: Ant Group was fined RMB 7.123 billion, marking the end of the rectification phase
• Huabei and Jiebei were incorporated into Ant Consumer Finance, subject to stricter risk control supervision
• Non-compliant businesses such as “Xianghubao” have been shut down [9][10]

The core selling point of Ant Group’s 2020 IPO was “technological attributes”, but the market still viewed it as a financial company. The AI healthcare strategy provides new supporting points for the IPO narrative:

Traditional Narrative	New Narrative
Payment Platform	AI Healthcare Service Entry
Fintech Company	Medical Large Model Technology Company
Traffic Monetization	Health Ecosystem Operator
Regulatory Arbitrage	Social Value Creator [1][4]

The explosive growth of the AI healthcare market (43.1% CAGR from 2025 to 2033) provides Ant with enormous growth narrative space. Frost & Sullivan predicts that China’s AI healthcare market will surge from RMB 8.8 billion in 2023 to RMB 315.7 billion in 2033. [7][8]

Compared with financial business, AI healthcare belongs to the people’s livelihood and inclusive field, and regulatory attitudes are more friendly. Ant Group, through initiatives such as one-stop settlement of “healthcare insurance + commercial insurance” and empowerment of primary healthcare, demonstrates social value, which helps improve its regulatory image. [2][4]

• Time Window
  : Preparation started in May 2025, with CICC and Morgan Stanley hired as advisors [10]
• Expected Valuation
  : USD 30-40 billion (300-400 in USD 100 million units)
• Business Foundation
  : Alipay+ (covering 90 million merchants in 66 countries and regions), WorldFirst (serving over 1 million SMEs), Antom (supporting 250+ payment methods) [9][10]
• Challenges
  : Cross-jurisdictional regulatory coordination, data privacy compliance, lower-than-expected valuation

Listing Venue	Advantages	Challenges
Hong Kong Stock Exchange	Waiting period expired, convenient access to international capital	Valuation may be limited
STAR Market (Shanghai)	Matches technological attributes, recognized by domestic investors	Needs to meet stricter technology recognition requirements
Simultaneous A+H Listing	Balances domestic and international capital	Complex regulatory approval [11]

• The “hallucination” issue of medical AI may lead to misdiagnosis risks, requiring continuous optimization of model accuracy [6]
• Medical data privacy protection has extremely high requirements, and compliance costs continue to rise
• Integration risks after the acquisition of Haodf.com

• Tech giants such as ByteDance (Doubao), Baidu (Ernie), and Tencent are all laying out AI healthcare [4]
• Vertical players such as Ping An Good Doctor and JD Health are also accelerating their AI transformation
• AI healthcare has a long investment cycle and slow returns (refer to Ping An Good Doctor, which took 10 years to achieve profitability) [5]

• The market is generally cautious about fintech valuations
• Ant International’s valuation is only 1/10 of Ant Group’s historical valuation
• Need to prove the independent profitability of the AI healthcare business

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1. Strategic Level
   : Ant Group’s upgrade of AI healthcare from a division to a business group is a key move in its “Life Services + Financial Services + Health Services” AI strategy. The rapid rise of AQ proves the feasibility of this strategy.

2. Valuation Level
   : The AI healthcare layout brings Ant the opportunity to reconstruct its valuation from “fintech” to “AI tech”. Although the expected valuation for Ant International’s independent listing is only USD 30-40 billion, the high growth potential and differentiated barriers of AI healthcare are expected to bring valuation premiums in the future overall listing.

3. IPO Prospects
   : The waiting period for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has expired, regulatory rectification has basically been completed, and the possibility of Ant International’s independent listing first is relatively high. The AI healthcare strategy, by enhancing technological attributes, demonstrating social value, and opening up growth space, creates a more favorable narrative environment and valuation foundation for Ant Group’s future overall listing.

: Ant International’s independent listing will release part of the business value, and the expected valuation of USD 30-40 billion has reference significance.

: The explosive growth of the AI healthcare market will bring the possibility of independent valuation for Ant’s Healthcare Business Group. If AQ can maintain continuous user growth and validate its business model, the Healthcare Business Group is expected to become a new valuation driver for Ant Group.

: The demand for healthcare services in an aging society will continue to grow, and Ant’s first-mover advantage and data barriers in the AI healthcare field will become core competitiveness.

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[1] 21st Century Business Herald - Ant Group’s Organizational Restructuring: Establishment of Healthcare Business Group

[2] Southern Metropolis Daily - Ant Group’s Organizational Restructuring: Upgrade to Healthcare Business Group

[3] QbitAI - New AI Battlefield for Tech Giants: AQ’s Surging Growth, Ant Bets on the Big Health Track

[4] 36Kr - Ant Fu Delivers Excellent Results After Its “First Month”

[5] AIBase - Ant Fu Upgrades PC Version, Launches DeepSearch Function for Medical Professionals

[6] OFweek - 2025 Great Health Industry Upheaval: AI Restructures the Ecosystem

[7] 21st Century Business Herald - AI Doctors Take the Stage: The 300 Billion RMB Healthcare Market Faces Restructuring

[8] Frost & Sullivan - China AI Healthcare Market Forecast

[9] DoNews - Five Years After Its Setback, Ant Group Revives Its IPO Dream

[10] Yema Finance - Ant International Prepares for Independent IPO: Why Has Ant Group’s Capital Strategy Shifted?

[11] Securities Times - The Largest Wealth Creation Movement in History! Ant Announces Dual Listing Plan