Chinese robot conducts complex operation on pig without human intervention

A robot developed by a Chinese company has successfully performed a biliary surgery on a 30kg pig, using an AI model to perform the procedure autonomously.

The experiment, which took place on December 24, was conducted by Shanghai MicroPort MedBot, using its Toumai robot powered by the proprietary Neuron multimodal surgical model, the company said in a post on Wednesday.

The core surgical procedures, including bile duct clamping and cutting, were performed autonomously by the Medbot, which successfully completed 88 per cent of the steps on its first attempt, followed by real-time adjustments and corrections to finish the surgery.

The “brain” for the robot, the Neuron AI model, is a multimodal action generation model trained on 3 billion parameters, including 23,000 surgical video clips. This enabled the surgical robot to simulate the clinical decision-making process of senior surgeons and optimise surgical strategies based on intraoperative imagery and instrument status, the company said.

The experiment, the first in the world, marked a significant leap from tele-operations done by humans via remote control to fully autonomous robotic surgery. “This milestone shows how large-model artificial intelligence can serve as a powerful tool to support surgeons, improving precision and consistency under expert clinical supervision,” said Brian Chang, chief medical officer at MedBot