Ant Digital Technology collaborates with licensed financial institutions in Hong Kong, and the one-stop tokenized issuance ecosystem takes shape | The Frontline
On August 7th, 36kr learned from the "Anchor" Web3.0 Future Summit held in Hong Kong that Ant Digital Technology is expanding its computing power and real-world asset (RWA) in the financial sector. Previously, Ant Digital Technology's RWA business mainly revolved around new energy assets. Bian Zhuoqun, the vice president of Ant Group and the president of Ant Digital Technology's blockchain business, said at the summit, "After practical verification in the new energy field, our RWA technology platform, business model, and ecosystem have gradually matured. Based on this premise, we have begun to steadily explore new opportunities in computing power and a wider range of financial assets."
In August 2024, Ant Digital Technology's RWA practice was selected as a representative case in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's Ensemble Sandbox. It has been exactly one year since then. It is reported that Ant Digital Technology is accelerating its layout in terms of technology, industry, and ecosystem.
In terms of technology, it has built a complete and reliable technical closed-loop for digital assets, ensuring efficiency, security, and compliance. In the industrial aspect, it has extended from the new energy sector to areas such as computing power and finance. In the ecosystem, in collaboration with the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology and more than 20 enterprises, it has promoted the "AntChain Inside" standard for putting physical assets on the blockchain. It has also cooperated with licensed institutions in Hong Kong to establish a "one-stop tokenization issuance system," helping enterprises complete RWA in a compliant, efficient, and cost-effective manner.
Build a Technical Closed-loop for Digital Assets with Trustworthiness, Efficiency, Security, and Compliance
The underlying driving force for expanding business boundaries is technology. As the company with the most blockchain-related authorized patents globally, in the past year, Ant Digital Technology has focused on digital asset scenarios such as RWA. Starting from four aspects - asset trustworthiness, efficient circulation, transaction security, and compliance - it has successively launched the "Two Chains and One Bridge" RWA platform, the AntChain Inside asset-on-chain solution, and the Layer2 blockchain Jovay.
The AntChain Inside solution uses AntChain's self-developed "blockchain + IoT" architecture at its core, which can map the trustworthy data of device assets in real-time and manage assets throughout their life cycles. This is the first step in putting assets on the blockchain and the foundation for large-scale RWA transactions. Currently, Ant Digital Technology has connected more than 15 million new energy devices through this technical architecture, forming the world's largest on-chain new energy device network.
After anchoring assets, how can they be circulated? Ant Digital Technology has achieved efficient docking between domestic assets and global funds through the "Two Chains and One Bridge" architecture. On this basis, Ant Digital Technology has further launched the Layer2 blockchain Jovay, specifically designed for institutional-level scenarios. It can significantly increase the throughput of RWA transactions while reducing the user response time to within one second. Ant Digital Technology has also introduced software and hardware technologies such as large AI models, homomorphic encryption, ZK, and TEE to ensure end-to-end privacy and compliance of assets.
Bian Zhuoqun introduced that Ant Digital Technology is deeply embracing the market demands in Hong Kong through code open-sourcing, ecosystem opening, tool sharing, and industry-university-research cooperation.
Prudently Expand New RWA Assets: "Never Touch What We Shouldn't"
Among the first batch of tokenization cases in the Ensemble Sandbox, the RWA project for new energy charging piles was selected. This was the starting point for Ant Digital Technology to explore the integration of green physical assets and digital assets, and it has since been successfully replicated in areas such as photovoltaics and battery swapping. Regarding the expansion into computing power and financial asset RWA, she said, "When we select assets, it's like transplanting trees. We don't aim for big leaps but rather focus on firmly establishing the roots in the soil first."
She said bluntly, "In the past year, we have rejected many RWA requests, including those related to agricultural products, wine, and high-end paintings." She added that every step, from technical verification to large-scale replication, must be taken solidly, and we should never touch what we shouldn't. The latest RWA industry report in Hong Kong points out that assets that can be successfully scaled up must meet three thresholds simultaneously: value stability, clear legal confirmation of rights, and verifiability of off-chain data. The idea that "everything can be RWA" is a false proposition.
Data centers for computing power are highly digitalized. Through cloud platforms, data such as resource usage, computing hours, and revenue distribution of computing power can be monitored in real-time, and the revenue is transparent and verifiable. With the wave of the AI era, the scale of the computing power market has been rising steadily, which is highly consistent with the requirements of RWA. In addition, financial assets have a natural digital gene and a compliance foundation, making them ideal targets for RWA.
Deeply Rooted in Hong Kong: A One-stop Tokenization Issuance Ecosystem Takes Shape
In the entire RWA process, assets and technology are just the starting points, and "compliant issuance" is the key to global circulation. In the past year, through in-depth cooperation with licensed institutions in Hong Kong, Ant Digital Technology has connected all aspects, including securities trading (Type 1 license), investment consulting (Type 4 license), asset management (Type 9 license), stablecoin, and digital asset custody.
In addition to the financial ecosystem, Ant Digital Technology is also working with the industrial ecosystem to promote the "asset-on-chain standard." It is reported that the technical specification for putting physical assets on the blockchain, jointly formulated by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology and Ant Digital Technology with more than 20 enterprises, will be released soon. This specification systematically proposes the full-process technical requirements for data on the blockchain for the first time and is regarded as the "quasi-5G standard" for RWA.
Since the beginning of this year, Ant Digital Technology has been very active in Hong Kong. In April, Ant Digital Technology signed an agreement to become a "Key Enterprise Partner" of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government and announced that its overseas headquarters would be located in Hong Kong. In July, Ant Digital Technology reached an industry-university-research cooperation agreement with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University to jointly establish an "AI + Web3 Laboratory."