On August 7th, reporters learned from the "Anchoring" Web3.0 Future Summit held in Hong Kong that Ant Digit is expanding its computing power and financial asset RWA business. Previously, Ant Digit's RWA business focused on new energy assets. Bian Zhuoqun, Vice President of Ant Group and President of Ant Digit's Blockchain Business, stated at the conference, "Our RWA technology platform, business model, and ecosystem have matured through practical experience in the new energy sector. Based on this foundation, we are steadily exploring new opportunities in computing power and a broader range of financial assets."

In August 2024, Ant Financial's RWA practice was selected as a representative case study in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's Ensemble Sandbox, marking exactly one year since its inception. Ant Financial is reportedly accelerating its development across technology, industry, and ecosystems.

On the technical level, a complete technical closed loop of digital assets that is trustworthy, efficient, secure and compliant has been built; on the industrial level, it has extended from new energy to computing power, finance and other fields; on the ecological level, it has jointly promoted the "AntChain Inside" physical asset chain standard with the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology and more than 20 companies, and cooperated with Hong Kong licensed institutions to build a "one-stop tokenization issuance system" to help companies complete RWA in a compliant, efficient and low-cost manner.

Trusted, efficient, secure and compliant, building a closed loop of digital asset technology

The underlying driving force behind the expansion of business boundaries is technology. As the company with the largest number of blockchain patents globally, Ant Digits has focused on digital asset scenarios like RWA over the past year, focusing on four key areas: asset trustworthiness, efficient circulation, transaction security, and compliance. The company has launched the RWA platform's "Two Chains, One Bridge" initiative, AntChain Inside, an asset on-chain solution, and Jovay, a Layer 2 blockchain.

AntChain Inside utilizes Ant Chain's proprietary "blockchain + IoT" architecture, enabling real-time mapping of trusted data on device assets and full lifecycle management. This is the first step in on-chain asset management and the foundation for large-scale RWA transactions. Currently, Ant Digits has connected over 15 million new energy devices using this technology, forming the world's largest on-chain new energy device network.

How do anchored assets circulate? Ant Digits utilizes a "two chains, one bridge" architecture to efficiently connect domestic assets with global capital. Building on this foundation, Ant Digits has launched Jovay, a Layer 2 blockchain specifically designed for institutional use cases. This significantly increases RWA transaction throughput while reducing user response times to under one second. Ant Digits also incorporates AI large-scale models, homomorphic encryption, ZK, TEE, and other hardware and software technologies to ensure end-to-end asset privacy and compliance.

Bian Zhuoqun introduced that Ant Financial is deeply embracing the scenario needs of the Hong Kong market through open source code, open ecosystem, tool sharing and industry-university-research cooperation.

Prudently expand new RWA assets, "never touch what you can't do"

The new energy charging pile RWA project was selected as one of the first tokenization cases in the Ensemble Sandbox. This marked the beginning of Ant Financial's exploration of the integration of green physical assets and digital assets, and was subsequently successfully replicated in areas such as photovoltaics and battery swapping. Regarding the expansion of computing power and financial asset RWA, she said, "Our asset selection is like transplanting a tree. We don't seek to make big strides, but rather to first establish the roots in the soil."

She admitted, "Over the past year, we've rejected many RWA requests, including agricultural products, red wine, and high-end paintings." She emphasized that from technical verification to scaled-up replication, every step must be taken with a firm hand, and anything that's unacceptable must be avoided. Hong Kong's latest RWA industry report indicates that assets that successfully achieve scaled deployment must simultaneously meet three key thresholds: value stability, legal clarity of ownership, and off-chain data verifiability. The notion that "everything can be an RWA" is a false proposition.

Computing data centers are highly digitized, and through cloud platforms, data such as computing resource usage, computing hours, and revenue distribution can be monitored in real time, making revenue transparent and verifiable. With the rise of AI, the computing power market is rapidly expanding, which is highly consistent with the requirements of RWA. Furthermore, financial assets, with their inherent digital DNA and regulatory compliance foundation, are also ideal targets for RWA.

Deeply rooted in Hong Kong, a one-stop token issuance ecosystem takes shape

In the entire RWA chain, assets and technology are merely the starting point; compliant issuance is the key to unlocking global circulation. Over the past year, Ant Digits has collaborated closely with licensed institutions in Hong Kong, connecting the entire chain, encompassing securities trading (License No. 1), investment consulting (License No. 4), asset management (License No. 9), stablecoins, and digital asset custody.

Beyond the financial ecosystem, Ant Digit is also collaborating with the industry ecosystem to promote "asset blockchain standards." It has been revealed that the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, Ant Digit, and over 20 companies are jointly developing technical specifications for the blockchainization of physical assets, which will be released soon. This document systematically proposes the full technical specifications for data blockchains for the first time and is considered a "5G-like standard" for RWA.

Ant Financial has been active in Hong Kong this year. In April, it signed a contract to become a "Key Corporate Partner" of the Hong Kong SAR government and announced the establishment of its overseas headquarters in Hong Kong. In July, Ant Financial and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University reached an industry-university-research collaboration to jointly establish an "AI+Web3 Laboratory."