Wang Xiaochuan: Toward the mathematical principles of life sciences

Why it matters

Baichuan Intelligence founder Wang Xiaochuan's first deep interview after pivoting to medical AI. His core proposition is striking: 'Building a doctor equals AGI' — not simple AI-assisted diagnosis, but turning medical diagnosis into a math problem where AI learns to reason like top-tier physicians. He explains why 'healthcare isn't a vertical' (every AI technology has a use case in medicine), how Baichuan used RL to achieve 3.5% hallucination rate (global lowest), and why both 'AlphaGo and the Wei Zexi incident' shaped his worldview.

Full Interview

Key takeaways

• 'Building a doctor = AGI' — medical diagnosis is the ultimate reasoning task: symptoms → differential → tests → diagnosis → treatment; AI has to get every step right.
• Healthcare isn't a vertical: 'Every AI technology — NLP, vision, reasoning, agents — has applications in medicine.'
• 3.5% hallucination rate, global lowest: RL teaches the model 'what is wrong' during training, not as an afterthought.
• Industry contrast: while big tech burns money on general models, Baichuan chose to 'step outside big tech's range' — medical AI is their answer.
• 2027 IPO target: '3 billion RMB in cash on the books — enough to keep investing in one track consistently.'