Abstract: Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) faces longstanding challenges in standardization and internationalization due to the subjective nature of pattern differentiation, variability in clinical practice, and limited integration with modern evidence-based medical systems. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and big data technologies offer promising solutions to transform TCM into a more objective, quantifiable, and scientifically interpretable healthcare system. This paper reviews current applications of AI and big data in TCM, including diagnosis, Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture and Tui Na (推拿), and clinical research. The roles of key AI technologies—including machine learning, computer vision, robotics, and network pharmacology—were examined across TCM data standardization, therapeutic optimization, evidence generation, and international translation. Regarding diagnostic outcomes, AI-assisted diagnostic systems have demonstrated promising performance in tongue, facial, pulse, voice, and symptom analysis, improving the objectivity and reproducibility of pattern differentiation. In Chinese herbal medicine, AI facilitates quality control, active compound discovery, herb–medicine interaction prediction, and mechanistic analysis through network pharmacology and multi-omics integration. Furthermore, robotic and AI-assisted acupuncture and Tui Na systems improve procedural precision, consistency, and safety while supporting standardized education and training. In clinical research, moreover, AI enhances patient recruitment, remote monitoring, data management, adverse event detection, and evidence generation through the integration of electronic health records, wearable technologies, and knowledge graphs. Despite these advances, significant challenges remain, including limited availability of standardized datasets, privacy and ethical concerns, insufficient model explainability, regulatory uncertainty, and the complexity of multi-component TCM interventions. In conclusion, while these challenges persist, AI and big data hold substantial potential to modernize and internationalize TCM by transforming traditionally experience-based practices into reproducible and evidence-supported systems. Through standardized data acquisition, explainable AI models, multimodal data integration, and alignment with international regulatory and biomedical frameworks, AI may serve as a critical bridge between TCM and modern healthcare systems.
Chen et al. (Tue,) studied this question.