World Conference on Traditional Medicine: plant pact, AI patent report released

The World Health Organization on Friday, 30 October 2026 set out the outcomes of the World Conference on Traditional Medicine 2026, which it co-sponsored in Beijing on 17 and 18 October. Delegates adopted the Beijing Initiative on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Traditional Medicinal Plant Resources, a new Global Alliance for Traditional and Integrative Medicine (GATIM) was set up to encourage scientific collaboration between countries, and a report on how artificial intelligence (AI) is being used in traditional medicine around the world was published. According to the report, 3,030 patents for AI applications in traditional medicine have been published worldwide since 2000, and China accounts for 80.4% of them.

Traditional medicine, which in India means Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha, Homoeopathy and Sowa-Rigpa, depends heavily on medicinal plants. Keeping those plant resources available is a long-term question for every country that relies on them. An international initiative on conserving medicinal plant resources and using them sustainably moves that concern on to the global agenda, alongside the usual questions of evidence and safety.

The AI report is the more pointed outcome. It found that AI is being applied across traditional medicine, but it also named a basic obstacle: much of traditional medicine is described in experience-based terms, while AI systems need standardised, measurable data. The report also called for coordinated rules to oversee the use of AI in the field. In practice, that means old texts, patient records and diagnostic terms have to be converted into consistent digital formats before machine learning can do much with them, and someone has to decide how such tools are checked for safety.

The patent figures show how unevenly that work is spread. One country, China, holds the great majority of published and granted patents in AI for traditional medicine. For other countries with strong traditional systems, India among them, the numbers point to the gap between having a large body of traditional knowledge and turning it into protected, data-driven products.

The conference was framed around WHO's Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025-2034, and WHO said it backs research into traditional medicine. WHO also held its second Global Summit on Traditional Medicine in New Delhi in December 2025, which shows how closely India is tied to these global discussions.

Peepals calculation: China's 80.4% share of the 3,030 published patents works out to about 2,436 patents (3,030 × 0.804 ≈ 2,436), leaving roughly 594 for every other country combined, so China has about four times as many as the rest of the world together (2,436 ÷ 594 ≈ 4.1). Our calculation from the reported figures.

Short-term: The Beijing Initiative and the new alliance give governments, researchers and producers a shared reference point on medicinal plant conservation and on joint research. Ayush institutions and companies that work with AI tools now have a published map of where patents and research are concentrated.

Long-term: If countries act on the report's call for standardised data and common rules for AI, traditional medicine could become easier to study with modern methods. Countries that digitise their texts and clinical records early are likely to shape those standards.

Who is affected: Ayush practitioners and researchers, medicinal plant growers and collectors, makers of herbal medicines, regulators, and patients who use traditional medicine in India and abroad.

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