China's PLA deploys AI tool 'DeepSeek' in military hospitals

The AI tool will assist doctors in military hospitals in devising treatment plans and will also be used in other civilian areas

- 

#BEIJING: China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has started using the recently released Chinese AI tool 'DeepSeek' for non-combat support functions, especially in military hospitals, to assist the doctors in devising treatment plans besides other civilian areas, media reports said.

DeepSeek's open-source large language models (LLMs) are being used in PLA hospitals, People's Armed Police (PAP), and national defence mobilisation organs, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Sunday.

Earlier this month, the general hospital of the PLA Central Theatre Command announced that it had authorised "embedded deployment" of DeepSeek's R1-70B LLM, saying it could provide treatment plan suggestions to support doctors, according to the Post.

The hospital also emphasised patient privacy and data security, noting that all data was stored and processed on local servers.