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our reporter li hui reports from shanghai

since the first half of this year, ant digits, which is responsible for the commercialization of ant group's technology, has undergone frequent changes. after adjustments such as "independent operation" and "change of leadership", has the company clarified its new development strategy?

in april this year, zhao wenbiao, senior vice president of ant group and former president of the big security business group, took over as the new ceo of ant digits. during the 2024 bund conference, zhao wenbiao, who had been in office for 170 days, faced the media for the first time and disclosed the company's business progress and strategic layout.

in an on-site interview with reporters from china business news and other media, zhao wenbiao said that the number of ant financial's customers has increased by 35% in the past year. in order to cope with the challenge of self-financing after independence, the company has adjusted its organizational structure and its business strategy has also focused on finding breakthroughs in commercialization, hoping to achieve a break-even point within the year.

commercialization rhythm - different sectors have different requirements

official information shows that ant digits started from ant chain and is currently the technology commercialization sector of ant group. in march this year, in the organizational structure adjustment of ant group, ant digits, oncenbase and ant international became the first batch of independently operated subsidiaries.

according to his resume, zhao wenbiao once served as vice president of american express, responsible for risk control business. later, he led the construction of important intelligent risk control systems for alipay and ant group, and completed key technology breakthroughs such as trusted ai and secure big models.

from the perspective of business segments, ant digits has currently formed three major categories of "abc" around the differentiated needs of industrial digitalization: cloud services (cloud+), which mainly help enterprises achieve digitalization on the cloud; ai services (ai+), which mainly use ai technology to reconstruct and upgrade scenario efficiency; and blockchain services (blockchain+), which build industry trust through technology and accelerate the circulation of data assets.

the above three businesses all have strong technical attributes and are oriented towards the b-end. from the perspective of any segment, their commercialization is a big challenge.

zhao wenbiao revealed that after taking over ant financial, the first step was to adjust the organizational structure and promote organizational efficiency. the second step was to clarify the strategy - what to do and what not to do, and how to transform technological capabilities into product advantages. "we have a lot of technology accumulation, but if it is not related to the digitalization of the enterprise, we can invest less energy in it, or even stop it. an independently operated company cannot be comprehensive."

the commercialization needs of an independently operated company are clear. regarding the challenges and pace of commercialization, zhao wenbiao believes: "many sectors of ant digits are mature. this year our growth rate has doubled, and the number of customers has increased by 35%. we will take some steps in some areas with clear models to lay a more solid foundation."

"we are stepping up our exploration in some areas," zhao wenbiao said. "for example, the business model of rwa (real world asset tokenization) is still not very clear. we hope to make this model work, cultivate the market, and increase revenue through better business strategies. i have different requirements for different sectors."

in short, ant digits does not want to repeat the development path of the leading ai institutions that have revenue but no profit. zhao wenbiao told reporters: "we hope to make ai that does not lose money, and strive to achieve break-even for ant digits by the end of this year."

regarding the revenue scale and listing expectations, zhao wenbiao revealed that the company's revenue scale is not much compared with internet companies, but it is still competitive compared with domestic leading software companies. it is predicted that the company's business will grow several times in the next 2-3 years. there is no specific timetable for listing at present, but it is clear that at least several conditions must be met - the business must be profitable, there must be stable growth, and there must be a clear trend in the growth rate. if these conditions are met, listing is a natural result.

business strategy: focus on overseas expansion

judging from the target markets of its business, ant digits is currently investing heavily in overseas expansion to meet the strong digital demand in emerging markets such as southeast asia.

according to official disclosure, in 2023, ant financial's overseas revenue increased by 300%. its mobile development platform mpaas, security technology zoloz, and web3 technology service platform zan have served hundreds of overseas partners, covering multiple scenarios such as telecommunications, finance, and government affairs.

zhao wenbiao said that going overseas is one of ant digital's important strategies, and he expects ant digital's overseas business to contribute one-fifth of its total revenue in the future.

yu bin, vice president of ant digital technology, told reporters: "previously, the way to export products overseas was to sell domestic products overseas. what we are doing now is to build local r&d institutions and business development teams. future overseas products should be called overseas localized products."

the reporter also noticed that the first cross-border rwa issued by ant digits and longshine technology was recently selected as one of the first asset tokenization cases by the hong kong monetary authority, taking a key step in empowering the real economy with web3 technology. it is understood that the financing scale of this rwa product is 100 million yuan, and ant digits mainly undertakes the bottom chain and cross-chain services on the technical side.

in zhao wenbiao's view, the rwa model is like a small ipo, which can greatly improve the financing efficiency of physical enterprises, especially small and micro businesses.

according to the reporter, the current blockchain business accounts for a small proportion of ant financial's revenue. however, the industry is optimistic about the prospects of related businesses - according to bcg's forecast, the market size of rwa will reach 15 trillion us dollars by 2030, accounting for 10% of the global gdp.

"we agree that blockchain can change the world and truly empower the real economy. we believe that it will become bigger and bigger in the future. even if we can only achieve 1% in this market, it will be a huge market," said zhao wenbiao.

(editor: li hui, reviewer: he shasha, proofreader: yan yuxia)