Meinian Onehealth and Alibaba Cloud Launch AI Competition Focused on Hypertension and Hyperlipidemia Risk Prediction
Introduction
From the implementation of the “Healthy China” strategy and the 19th National Congress’s proposal to build a national, prevention-oriented comprehensive health system, to the establishment of the National Health Commission, with the government providing key support to “unicorn” enterprises in fields such as biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing, the golden age of preventive medicine in China has arrived.
Driven by the national big data strategy, artificial intelligence is in the ascendant. As the field most likely to achieve breakthroughs first, Health AI is not only significant in uncovering the intrinsic patterns of diseases and shifting the focus toward early detection, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, but also lays a technical foundation for addressing the challenge of controlling national health insurance expenditures and improving the quality of medical and health services.
Meinian Onehealth provides professional physical examinations and health management services to tens of millions of clients from all ethnic groups across China annually, establishing itself as the largest precision personal health big data platform in the country. By scientifically planning and utilizing data, it delivers public health initiatives and personalized precision health services. Furthermore, it conducts medical scientific research, leveraging real-world data to support health and hygiene decision-making, thereby safeguarding individual health, advancing scientific research, and facilitating the implementation of the national "Healthy China" strategy through multiple channels.
On March 28, at the 2018 Apsara Conference·Shenzhen Summit, Meinian Onehealth and Alibaba Cloud jointly announced the official launch of the “Meinian Onehealth AI Competition & Tianchi Challenge for Predicting Risk of Hypertension and Hyperlipidemia.” As one of the fields most likely to see early breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI), this competition aims to aggregate top global talent and advanced algorithms to leverage AI technology in identifying key biomarkers associated with hypertension and hyperlipidemia (hereinafter referred to as “the two highs”), uncover underlying disease patterns, and shift disease control upstream. These efforts lay a technical foundation for addressing national challenges in controlling healthcare insurance costs and improving the quality of medical and health services. As an advocate and practitioner of preventive medicine, Meinian Onehealth initiated this competition to support the “Healthy China” strategy through concrete actions and fulfill its corporate social responsibility. Mr. Yu Rong, Chairman of Meinian Onehealth, and Mr. Hu Xiaoming, President of Alibaba Cloud, jointly attended the launch ceremony.
The 21st century is hailed as the “Century of Life Sciences,” with big data and artificial intelligence emerging as a disruptive “Industrial Revolution.” Leading global internet companies are adhering to the “traffic + technology + ecosystem” development model, attracting worldwide attention and identifying innovative business opportunities. Amid great-power competition, life sciences and technology are destined to become a cornerstone of national strength.
As a focal point of future national strategy and global attention, the golden age of preventive medicine in China has arrived: implementing the "Healthy China" strategy; the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed building a national health system with prevention as the priority; the newly established National Health Commission; and government policies providing key support to "unicorn" enterprises in fields such as biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing. It has become a consensus to shift the focus from disease treatment to health prevention. While benefiting from an unprecedentedly favorable external environment, Meinian Onehealth, a leading domestic enterprise in preventive medicine, has developed a unique dual-cycle drive model (scale generates traffic, traffic produces data, data drives technology, technology creates an ecosystem, and the ecosystem drives scale). This model is propelling the company's transformation from a scale-and-traffic-oriented enterprise to a technology-driven platform. With mutual reinforcement and cyclical enhancement of its advantageous genetic traits, the company aims to grow into a data-driven life science and health service company with unlimited potential.
Following its previous competitions in the aviation and power sectors, Alibaba Cloud Tianchi is launching another AI competition deeply rooted in industry applications. Built on Meinian Onehealth’s big data, this algorithm competition will attract nearly 150,000 data scientists and technology enthusiasts from around the world to compete. Under intense public scrutiny, the competition will tackle the screening algorithms for the “double-high” indicators of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases—the leading threat to human health. For this event, Meinian Onehealth will provide fully anonymized, secure, and compliant physical examination and genetic data. Leveraging the Tianchi competition platform, the company seeks the optimal algorithms for screening these “double-high” indicators. The competition consists of a preliminary round focused on predicting “double-high” diseases based on physical examination data, and a semi-final round focused on predicting “double-high” risks using both genetic and physical examination data. The finalists will converge in Shanghai for the grand finale in June, with the entire competition spanning three months.
Discussing the original intention behind the competition, Mr. Yu Rong, Chairman of Meinian Onehealth, stated that cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases are major threats to the life and health of the Chinese people, imposing a heavy burden on society and families and causing significant economic losses. Meinian Onehealth aims to invite experts in global health big data to discover, aggregate, and validate algorithms for health assessment and prediction in China through a fair and open competition platform, thereby selecting high-standard model carriers. We will also provide financial and data support to outstanding scientists and top-tier algorithm projects emerging from the competition. This event marks only the beginning of our Health AI series. In the future, we will collaborate with Alibaba Tianchi to provide a data platform and tackle major diseases threatening human health, including tumors, fundus lesions, and Alzheimer’s disease, thereby accelerating the development of precision medicine and benefiting early screening for individuals with chronic diseases. Chairman Yu further noted that Meinian Onehealth has already made comprehensive deployment plans for the application of health big data, which will empower the health ecosystem in the next phase, drive further business transformation, and create greater opportunities for innovation.
Mr. Hu Xiaoming, President of Alibaba Cloud, introduced that the Tianchi Big Data Competition is a high-end algorithm competition hosted by Alibaba Group for researchers worldwide. To promote the widespread adoption of AI-assisted healthcare, relying solely on technology companies is far from sufficient. Alibaba Cloud aims to collaborate with more professional institutions like Meinian Onehealth to jointly advance technological research and development. By leveraging de-identified big data provided by Meinian Onehealth to train algorithms, the performance of vital signs big data analysis has been significantly enhanced. The Tianchi Competition will serve as a platform for the world’s brightest minds to innovate together.
Data indicate that "double high" (hyperlipidemia and hypertension) is a significant risk factor for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. However, over 40% of adults in China suffer from dyslipidemia, and the prevalence of hypertension has been rising year by year. In 2012, the prevalence of hypertension among Chinese adults aged 18 and above was 25.2%, up from only 18.8% in 2002. Evidence shows that emphasizing early screening and detection of "double high," followed by health warnings and timely interventions, can fundamentally shift the focus from disease treatment to health management, making cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases preventable and treatable.
As China’s largest preventive medicine traffic entry platform and health big data center, Meinian Onehealth creates maximum value for customers’ life and health. Therefore, the more profound significance of the competition lies in the fact that Meinian Onehealth has taken the lead in initiating big data modeling in the field of single-disease categories. Such big data holds significant academic value in national disease prevention and control, promoting public health, and strengthening foundational medical research.
For many years, Meinian Onehealth has remained committed to the prevention of chronic diseases and cardiovascular conditions. In 2016, Mr. Yu Rong, Chairman of the Board, pioneered the concept of “Precision Prevention” at the Global Health Promotion Conference, which is regarded as a core component of precision medicine. The company joined forces with leading Chinese diabetes enterprises to launch the ten-year “National Sugar Control Moonshot Initiative.” In 2017, it collaborated with Zhifei Biological Products, a top domestic vaccine biotechnology firm, to promote adult vaccination programs. In early 2018, it signed an agreement with the National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases to establish a “Screening-Diagnosis and Treatment” model based on a “Health Checkup Center–Specialist Medical Consortium” framework. Leveraging its vast customer base, massive and precise health big data platform, and a standardized medical service network spanning across China, Meinian Onehealth is striving to build the most promising large-scale health industry cluster in China. By serving as both an ecosystem platform and an incubation carrier, Meinian Onehealth has successfully constructed a highly influential core ecosystem for the health industry and continues to lead the development of preventive medicine and the transformation of the health management sector in China.