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on march 19, ant group chairman and ceo jing xiandong issued a letter to all employees, and ant digits became one of the three independently operated subsidiaries of ant. more than 170 days later, the first ceo of ant digits, zhao wenbiao, announced the company's business progress and strategic layout for the first time at the media communication meeting of the 2024 inclusion·bund conference. from the establishment of the blockchain laboratory in 2015 to independent operation in 2024, the original intention and core of ant digits has always been to serve the digitalization of enterprises through technological innovation. the so-called abc refers to the three businesses provided by ant digits in the process of enterprise digitalization, a (ai+), b (blockchain+), and c (cloud+). from cloud native to ai native, and then to blockchain native, this is the evolutionary order of the time dimension. adding the spatial dimension, "i expect the overseas business to contribute one-fifth of the total revenue in the future," said zhao wenbiao.

“dna is blockchain”

"we call him brother biao internally." in his ninth year of joining ant, zhao wenbiao took over ant digital technology as the first ceo.

looking back, he believes that he has a special connection with ant digits. "ant digits originated from the ant blockchain lab established in 2015. i also worked on blockchain in 2016." at that time, many of zhao wenbiao's predictions had been realized, and some new changes were taking place, such as rwa (asset tokenization), which combines physical assets with blockchain.

not long ago, the hong kong monetary authority announced the first phase of important progress in the ensemble project sandbox. langxin group used the new energy charging piles operated on its platform as rwa anchor assets and obtained the first rwa cross-border financing. in this case, langxin technology used ant digital's blockchain fusion technology to put the real operating data of the charging piles on the chain and turn them into credible digital assets.

zhao yongchao, deputy director of the shanghai data exchange research institute, believes that data assets formed after management and classification by organizations will gradually become one of the core assets of enterprises, and their economic value can be released with the help of technological means such as sto (securities token offering) and rwa.

the logic behind the combination of blockchain and physical business is this: "ai solves more productivity problems, while blockchain solves production relations. ant digits conducts low-cost, high-efficiency collaboration based on mutual trust among all parties," yan ying, chief scientist of ant digits, explained to the media.

ant chain and its partners have jointly developed trusted chip modules, trusted baseband chips and other products to ensure that device data is uploaded to the chain as soon as it is generated. currently, more than 12 million physical devices have been uploaded to the chain in a trusted manner. ant chain can carry 1 billion daily transactions × 1 billion accounts for stable operation and achieve 200,000-level ctps transaction performance.

"ant digits' dna is blockchain. we have high expectations for rwa. this sector brings unlimited imagination to ant digits, but it is just the beginning now," zhao wenbiao said frankly. in order to support this case, the team has had a difficult time over the past few months.

“mobile phones go directly into intelligence”

the overseas business was also developed step by step.

according to data previously released by ant financial, the revenue growth rate of overseas business will be 300% in 2023. the 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.

ant financial cto wang wei specifically introduced zoloz, "in recent years, we have been upgrading solutions based on the scenarios and pain points of overseas customers. many solutions no longer use the same technology that alipay used at the time. overseas business revenue increased by 300%, and a large part of the contribution came from zoloz's overseas customers."

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

when it comes to target markets, wang wei mentioned indonesia, the philippines, vietnam, etc. "the digitalization process of many emerging countries and regions in southeast asia is equivalent to that of china 5-8 years ago." he further compared it to "a bit like entering the intelligent era directly through mobile phones without buying a pc."

it should be emphasized that success in overseas markets is not simply copying the chinese experience. "in the past, our approach was to make domestic products and sell them overseas. what we are doing now is to turn our products into overseas-oriented products, directly build r&d institutions and business development teams in the local area, and use localized products to serve localized customers," said yu bin, vice president of ant financial.

“big models are not the only solution”

whether abroad or at home, ant digits wants to serve the real economy. in the process of service, ant digits discovered that "big models are not the only solution for industrial digitalization." before putting forward this point of view, zhao wenbiao added a premise, "even though everyone is talking about big models now, we still need to integrate more technologies."

why are big models not the only solution? "it's not because of illusion or instability, but because there are many demands in the process of enterprise digitalization, some of which can be solved by big models, and some cannot," zhao wenbiao replied. "i hope that big models can be combined with iot (internet of things), blockchain, privacy computing, security technology, and cloud computing, so that they can truly solve the real problems of the real economy and real enterprises."

this is something ant financial recognized very early on. seeking single-point technological breakthroughs is no longer the best solution. technology products should become a trusted glue between upstream and downstream industries, promoting a significant improvement in transaction efficiency.

back to the abc business strategy, cloud services (cloud+) help enterprises enter the digital "cloud" stage and build a more powerful technology engine; ai services (ai+) use ai technology to reconstruct and upgrade the efficiency of risk control, marketing and other scenarios, helping enterprises establish competitive advantages in the big model era; blockchain services (blockchain+) build industry trust through technology and improve the efficiency of digital collaboration.

"in the past year, the number of ant financial's customers has increased by 35%. many of its products have achieved the first place in market share in their respective sectors," zhao wenbiao revealed.

beijing business daily reporter wei wei

image source: provided by the company