Formed through a merger between Tencent's medical unit Doctorwork and Shanghai-based startup Trusted Doctors, the company has the largest network of private online-to-offline clinics in China as well as the largest number of ambulatory surgery centers.

Currently, it runs 33 general clinics, seven in-house corporate clinics, one specialist clinic and six ambulatory surgery centers in first and second-tier cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.

A total of 15 leading group medical practices have partnered with Tencent Trusted Doctors, and by the end of February, more than 10 million patients had received treatment from private practitioners through its online and offline platforms and 6,000 operations had been performed in its ambulatory surgery centers, the company said.

Internationally, about 60 percent of surgeries are conducted in ambulatory surgery centers instead of in hospitals, while in China the number is 10 to 20 percent, which indicates great growth potential for third-party medical facilities, according to Shen.

The United States has about 7,000 ambulatory surgery centers independent of hospitals.

As the Chinese population is four times that of the US, China should have 280,000 ambulatory surgery centers, while currently there are fewer than 20 in the country, he added.

It will be easier to apply self-driving technology that does not require constant and direct human-monitoring to taxis and vehicles Toyota is developing, including on-demand ride services, mobile shops and ambulatory hospitals, said James Kuffner, chief of Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development.