Alibaba’s Ant Group Introduces New Technology Brand, All-in-One Workstation to Accelerate Blockchain Deployment

Alibaba’s Ant Group, the parent company of China’s largest mobile payment platform Alipay, Thursday launched AntChain, a new technology brand for the company’s blockchain-based solutions that aggregates digital technologies including AI, the Internet of Things (IoT) and secure computation.

Ant Group also unveiled AntChain Station, an all-in-one workstation that reduces the deployment time of the company’s blockchain technology by as much as 90%.

“Since our inception, building trust has been core to our offer to customers,” said Eric Jing, Executive Chairman of Ant Group in a launch event on Thursday. “We believe in blockchain’s potential to redefine trust in the digital age, and in solving real-life problems for our customers.”

The AntChain solution is based on the company’s blockchain technology, which has been used in more than 50 business scenarios such as in commodity traceability, digital copyright, retrospection of charity donation, supply chain finance and digital logistics.

Since 2015, Ant Group has been investing significantly in the research and development of blockchain technologies, and now has the largest blockchain platform in China with the ability to process and support 1 billion transactions every day. Over 100 million digital assets are uploaded to the AntChain on average every day, the company’s press release said. According to a report published by the China Patent Protection Association, Ant Group-operated Alipay holds the most blockchain patents worldwide with 212 patents as of May 2020.

“We look forward to contributing to the acceleration of blockchain-enabled industry transformations, and to working with our partners to make blockchain technology more accessible for users, as well as creating tangible value for SMEs, consumers and clients across a spectrum of industries,” Geoff Jiang, Vice President of the company said.

AntChain Station, which is approximately the size of a laptop, is designed to accelerate the deployment of AntChain’s applications. The all-in-one AntChain Station offers users an easy-to-use integrated alternative, combining built-in software and a dedicated hardware accelerator which is expected to reduce deployment time by 90% and increase transaction speed by 30%.

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Ant Group Thursday also signed a strategic agreement with Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo to make IT leasing services more accessible for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). Previously in May, Ant Group formed a similar partnership with US semiconductor maker Intel. The cooperation drew from the two companies’ power to bolster transparency and efficacy among IT leasing vendors.