Ant Group’s CTO Envisions a Marathon Towards AGI at the Fortune Innovation Forum

“The journey towards AGI is a marathon, not a 100-meter dash. You need to be incremental, you need to keep doing the hard work and keep investing,” said Ant Group’s Chief Technology Officer, Zhengyu He, at the Fortune Innovation Forum in Hong Kong on March 27, 2024.

With over 3,000 AI-related patents as of the end of 2023, the company has demonstrated its commitment to pushing the boundaries of the technology and making it more accessible to all people. The Ant Group CTO outlined that the challenges in scaling AI applications include power consumption, lack of domain knowledge, and AI’s social impact.

The Ant Group CTO shared insights into the considerations behind the public release of products powered by the company’s foundational AI model, Bailing. “One is accessibility… The other is safety and security,” he remarked, pointing to the successful integration of generative AI features in the Alipay app that captivated 600 million interactions in just 12 days, allowing users to immerse themselves in a digital Hong Kong movie experience during the 2024 Chinese new year period.

The drive towards a future where AI can “discover new knowledge for humanity” is balanced with a rigorous approach to safety and ethics, as Zhengyu He highlighted the role of Ant Group’s AI Security Detection Platform, Yitianjian, and a technology ethics review mechanism in vetting AI-powered products.

Ant Group’s commitment to the broader tech community are also reflected its active participation in the open-source ecosystem, with more than 1,900 repositories available on platforms like GitHub by the end of 2023. Recognized as a leader in open-source development in China, the company’s innovations, such as ATorch and Lookahead, have significantly improved the performance and efficiency of AI model training.

As Zhengyu He states, the path to AGI “will be truly disruptive for humanity,” requiring persistent effort and investment. Through strategic innovation and ethical foresight, Ant Group is navigating the complexities of AI development, with an eye on making the technology more accessible for consumers, small businesses and industry partners.