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Ant Group has set up a new AI unit, according to people familiar with the matter. Photo: Reuters
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Chinese fintech giant Ant Group sets up AI unit led by former Google researcher

  • The new unit, called NextEvo, will drive and coordinate Ant’s core AI efforts, according to people familiar with the matter
  • Beijing has been relaxing some restrictions on Ant’s businesses after the Hangzhou-based company took several steps to restructure
Ant Group
Ben Jiang
Ben Jiangin Beijing
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Ant Group, the Chinese fintech giant affiliated with Alibaba Group Holding, has set up a new artificial intelligence (AI) unit led by a former engineer at Google, demonstrating its ambitions in applying the fast-developing technology to its expanding business.

The new unit – called NextEvo and headed by Xu Peng, a vice-president of engineering at Ant – will drive and coordinate the fintech powerhouse’s core AI efforts, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss internal developments.

The news was first reported by Chinese online media outlet 36Kr. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Ant’s increased AI efforts come at a time when most major Chinese tech companies are investing in large language models (LLMs) – the technology that underpins ChatGPT and similar AI chatbots – and exploring ways to boost growth through innovations in the area.

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NextEvo will be in charge of Ant’s own LLM, Bailing, as well as AI algorithms and engineering, natural language processing (NLP) and AI-generated content operations, sources said.

Beijing has been relaxing some restrictions on Ant’s businesses after the Hangzhou-based company took several steps to restructure following the last-minute cancellation of its planned dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong in 2020.

The People’s Bank of China and the government of Zhejiang province were preparing to grant Qiantang Credit Rating, an Ant-affiliated agency, a “personal credit information collection licence”, a necessary permit for Ant to grow its credit business, central bank governor Pan Gongsheng said on Wednesday.

Ant applied for the permit as early as 2021, but since then Chinese financial regulators have imposed regulatory requirements that demand the company’s credit service to operate under conventional banking rules, effectively curbing its expansion.

As Ant underwent a restructuring, founder Jack Ma’s voting rights at the firm’s payment app Alipay shrank from over 53 per cent to just above 6 per cent. The Chinese central bank confirmed last month that Alipay had no controller, bringing Ant another step closer towards resuming its listing.
Last year, Ant became one of the first Chinese tech companies to receive a green light from the government to release consumer-facing products and applications built on LLMs.

Xu, the head of NextEvo, joined Ant in 2016 and has been leading the company’s AI research lab from Silicon Valley.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Tsinghua University and a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University focusing on NLP, Xu worked for over a decade at Google, where he held research roles related to machine translation and advertising algorithms, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Xu has said that Bailing is designed to be used to build more innovative products in various services and “create value in the industry”.

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