
Editor’s Note: On the morning of March 28, the 34th Annual Meeting of the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL 2025) officially opened. During the keynote session, APASL 2025 Scientific Committee Chair, Academician Jiahong Dong of Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital, delivered a keynote speech titled “Precision Surgical Treatment of Liver Diseases” and participated in an in-depth interview with International Hepatology. In his address, Academician Dong presented IDEAL—China’s first multimodal intelligent system for precision surgical decision-making in liver diseases. He explained how IDEAL enhances the accuracy, safety, and minimally invasive nature of liver surgery, offering patients greater health benefits. Dong also emphasized the transformative role of digital technologies in surgical care, predicting their impact across clinical evaluation, surgical planning, decision-making, and data management, thus accelerating innovation in the field of hepatobiliary surgery.