Ant Group CTO Cheng Li’s Money 20/20 Asia Presentation on FinTech Innovation: AI, Blockchain, Cloud and Mobile Payments

At Money 20/20 Asia in March, Ant Group’s CTO and International Business COO Cheng Li delivered a keynote that showcased the firm’s extensive fintech achievements and future technology strategy.

He began by illustrating how mobile payments have transformed everyday life in remote regions of China, citing examples such as a Tibetan teenager using QR codes at 5,200 m altitude and a herder receiving micro‑loans for cattle.

Cheng described Ant Group’s B.A.S.I.C. technology strategy, which focuses on five core pillars: Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Security, Internet of Things, and Computing. He explained how blockchain provides transparent, traceable trust for supply‑chain and charitable applications, while AI reduces payment‑risk to one‑in‑a‑million and powers intelligent customer service.

The speech highlighted concrete product innovations: biometric “Smile” vending‑machine payments, ultra‑fast micro‑loans (3‑minute application, 1‑second disbursement, cost < 2 CNY), QR‑code “instant‑take‑away” checkout, and the evolution of quick‑pay that raised success rates from <70% to 95%.

Cheng also detailed the underlying technical infrastructure. Ant Group migrated its transaction processing to a cloud‑native, distributed stack built on the SOFA middleware and OceanBase distributed database, supporting 256 k transactions per second. The right side of the architecture handles data pipelines and real‑time financial decision‑making, emphasizing security, low latency, and cost efficiency.

In the AI domain, Ant Group is turning AI into “Financial Intelligence” – a digital brain that drives risk assessment, credit scoring, and consumer service. The fifth‑generation risk engine, powered by AI, delivers four capabilities: perception, AI‑based identification, autonomous policy adjustment, and hourly model updates.

Security and digital identity are also central. The company invests heavily in biometric facial recognition, with over 30% of users authenticating via face ID, and collaborates on the Internet Financial Authentication Alliance to set identity standards.

Looking ahead, Cheng acknowledged challenges such as handling massive IoT data streams, building universal digital identity, and ensuring security at global scale. He expressed optimism that open collaboration with universities, research labs, and partners will help overcome these hurdles.

Overall, the presentation underscored Ant Group’s commitment to leveraging AI, blockchain, cloud computing, and distributed systems to create a more equitable, efficient, and trustworthy financial ecosystem.