Artificial intelligence empowers laboratory medicine in Industry 4.0

: Since 2017, China, the United States, and the European Union have successively issued national-level artificial intelligence (AI) strategic development plans, and the human history is about to witness the 4th industrial revolution with the theme of "intelligence". In the field of medical testing, the explosive growth of AI theories and technologies also provide a new direction for the development of medical testing theory, methods and applications. We review the evolution of AI and the recent progress in three major elements of AI, namely algorithms, data and computing power, and elaborate on the combined innovation of "AI + testing" in light of the key application dimensions of medical testing. The major applications include specimen collection robots, sample dilution robots and sample transfer robots involved in the processing of test specimens; test item mining such as tumor markers and pharmacogenomics; cytomorphology, laboratory medicine data processing, auxiliary diagnostic models, and internet-based medical tests. With the advent of the era of Industry 4.0, AI technology will promote the development of medical testing from automation to a highly intelligent stage.