(Yicai Global) July 22 -- Tencent Holdings and a team led by the famous Chinese pulmonologist Zhong Nanshan have joined hands on predicting Covid-19 patients' odds of becoming severely ill with the virus by using artificial intelligence.

Tencent AI Lab and Zhong have been able to analyze and forecast the conditions of patients in five, 10, and 30 days via deep learning to help hospitals tend to patients with the highest risk, according to a research paper published on Nature on July 15.

Medical staff can use the tool via the Shenzhen-based tech giant's social media platform WeChat. Applying the method throughout a patient's hospitalization process should also improve the app's accuracy, The Paper reported yesterday, citing Tencent.

In February, the Chinese government's medical advisor and Tencent announced their cooperation to build a Big Data and AI lab to jointly fight the Covid-19 pandemic and warn people about possible new outbreaks.

Editor: Emmi Laine