AICreate Medical: AI-Powered 'Third Eye' for Oral Health Screening

As the first benchmark competition in the Asia-Pacific region dedicated to digital dental innovation,The 1st Digital Dentistry Innovation ChallengeBringing together cutting-edge innovative forces from across the industry. Under the guidance of the Rizhao Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government, and with meticulous planning by the Administrative Committee of Rizhao High-Tech Industrial Development Zone, the competition has invited authoritative experts—including academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, leading universities, top-tier Grade A tertiary hospitals, and prominent investment institutions—to form a professional judging panel, garnering extensive attention from all sectors of the industry.

After rigorous screening and strict evaluation, 26 high-potential, innovative projects have emerged as finalists. These selected projects not only highlight the vitality and promising future of the digital dentistry industry but also represent the cutting-edge innovation within China’s digital dentistry sector. In the coming days, we will sequentially showcase these outstanding startups and innovative teams to help you stay abreast of the latest industry trends.

Text | Haodeya

Current Project: ICARE

*The following content is excerpted from the project pitch deck materials

In the untapped market of dental healthcare, Zhuhai ICARE Medical Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “ICARE”) is redefining the future of oral health management with artificial intelligence. As an innovative enterprise specializing in dental imaging technology, ICARE holds over 30 core patents, possesses leading macro imaging technology and a standardized database of oral diseases, and has successfully developed the world’s first AI-powered comprehensive oral health assessment system.

Currently, the company has been certified as a National High-Tech Enterprise and has received government policy support in areas such as facilities, talent acquisition, and taxation. Its product portfolio spans multiple fields, including professional dental medical diagnosis, oral disease prevention, and home oral health care. The company has obtained international quality certifications such as ISO 13485 and ISO 9001, and its products are utilized by dental clinics and institutions in numerous countries and regions worldwide.

ICARE has gained deep insights into industry development trends, recognizing that China’s dental healthcare sector is ushering in a strategic transformation opportunity. With the implementation of national centralized procurement policies for dental implants, preventive dental care is emerging as a new engine driving industry growth. In-depth research into the Japanese dental market reveals that its population of 120 million supports a market size of USD 30 billion, with preventive care accounting for 70% of this share.

Based on this data, market forecasts suggest that China’s oral prevention market, serving a population of 1.4 billion, is poised to reach a scale of one trillion yuan. In response, ICARE has keenly capitalized on this trend by positioning AI-driven public health education and oral screening as key breakthrough areas in the field of preventive healthcare.

To this end, ICARE has established a triple technological moat comprising oral image acquisition technology, intelligent oral diagnosis technology, and oral disease risk prediction technology, safeguarding its development. Leveraging rich clinical data accumulated from over 30,000 dental clinics across China, ICARE’s AI system has successfully achieved intelligent identification and precise diagnosis of oral diseases through deep integration with professional clinical databases. Notably, the company has built one of the largest standardized oral disease databases in China, achieving a professional accuracy rate of over 95% in caries diagnosis.

To date, ICARE’s AI system has been successfully implemented.The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Harbin Stomatological Hospital, Stomatological Hospital of Jilin University, Hunan Children's Hospital, Handan Stomatological Hospital, Shandong Provincial Stomatological Hospital, Qingdao Stomatological Hospital, The College of Dentistry of Hong Kong, etc.Endorsement by numerous authoritative medical and academic institutions has not only validated its technological prowess but also laid a solid foundation for market expansion. Currently, the company holds a 20% market share, demonstrating a relatively strong competitive advantage.

At the application scenario level, ICARE has built a comprehensive visual AI oral health management ecosystem, achieving full coverage across both in-hospital and out-of-hospital settings. Within hospitals, AI-powered oral self-check devices are used for patient education prior to diagnosis and treatment; during clinical procedures, ICARE’s oral observation devices assist in clinical diagnosis; and post-treatment, AI dental mirrors facilitate postoperative management. In terms of out-of-hospital services, its innovatively developed oral examination device has increased the efficiency of traditional free clinic screenings by nearly tenfold, reducing examination time to just 25 seconds per person while generating instant reports—a breakthrough achievement. The professionalism and practical value of this product have been recognized by the Chinese Foundation for Oral Health Prevention and Control, and it has now been incorporated into the assessment criteria for Health Ambassadors.

Targeting household users, ICARE’s “Ai Ya Kan Kan” app adopts an open empowerment strategy. By providing smart dental mirrors, toothbrushes, or smartphone-based solutions, it enables every family to conveniently manage daily oral health, striving to promote the widespread adoption of oral healthcare across the population.

ICARE’s innovative development is inseparable from its formidable core team. Founder Li Yongbin has dedicated 15 years to the design of image processing chips, while Dr. Li Zhanli, a key member of the technical team and a postdoctoral fellow in Computer Science from Xi’an Jiaotong University, possesses extensive expertise in artificial intelligence-based image analysis. Furthermore, the core team brings together multidisciplinary professionals from fields such as stomatology, electronic information engineering, and computer science and technology, forming a cross-disciplinary synergy that provides a solid talent foundation for the project’s continuous innovation and growth.

In terms of business layout, ICARE has successfully established a marketing network system covering the whole country. Currently, it is focusing on building a comprehensive, full-cycle visualized AI oral health management system that covers families, schools, communities, and dental medical institutions. Looking ahead, ICARE plans to further enhance its comprehensive capabilities, including R&D innovation and market expansion, through strategic financing.

In a new era where the philosophy of preventive medicine has taken deep root, ICARE’s AI-powered oral screening system serves as a prism, refracting the profound value of integrating preventive medicine with artificial intelligence. The combination of 95% diagnostic accuracy for dental caries and an ultra-fast screening efficiency of just 25 seconds demonstrates not only a breakthrough in algorithmic computing power but also a restructuring of the traditional logic governing healthcare resource allocation.

As the “third eye” penetrates households, communities, and clinics, is technology truly creating inclusive value, or is it reshaping the power structure of healthcare? By empowering traditional dental care with AI, we enable China’s 1.4 billion people to access, understand, and practice effective oral health management. This is not merely a commercial innovation, but a historic mission to advance population-wide health.

There may be no single answer to this question, but ICARE’s practices are telling us that in the digital twin world of oral health, every precise focus of data and imaging is rewriting the possibilities for human-technology symbiosis.