Ant Group pivots further towards hard tech with new blockchain engine as its financial services operations remain under scrutiny
- The Ant Group Digital Technologies unit has unveiled Letus, a way of lowering the storage costs of blockchain networks
- Development suggest a further move towards hard tech for Ant as financial services business remains under regulatory scrutiny
Ant Group, which is still undergoing a restructuring after regulators blocked its initial public offering in 2020, unveiled a blockchain storage engine on Thursday as the fintech giant signals a pivot towards hard tech.
The Ant Group Digital Technologies unit unveiled Letus, or Log-structured Efficient Trusted Universal Storage, at the Apsara Conference in Hangzhou, describing it as a way to lower the storage costs of blockchain networks, according to a press release on Thursday.
“Letus can improve storage throughput by 15 times, reduce latency by 90 per cent, and save disk bandwidth and space usage by 95 per cent and 60 per cent [respectively],” said Yan Ying, technical director of AntChain, in the release.
The company also released updated versions of various “platform-as-a-service” products at the event, however Ant – which still runs the country’s most dominant mobile payment services app – revealed little new on the financial services side of its operations.
Ant’s planned IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong was called off at the last minute two years ago after a change in the regulatory environment. It is still undergoing a state-directed restructuring process, with no new schedule for a revived listing yet. The financial services side of its business, which includes the lucrative consumer credit space, now falls under the same regulations as traditional banking businesses.