Alipay bets on artificial intelligence for leaps in payments system

Ant Financial, the financial affiliate of Alibaba Group, is probably best known for its mobile payment services Alipay. But artificial intelligence is integral to business growth, product security and optimization, according to Qi Yuan, a vice-president and chief data scientist at Ant Financial. For Ant Financial, which is valued at US$60 billion following a US$4.5 billion fundraising round last year, AI is the key driver for its business. It's been applied to all of its operations which includes loans, wealth management, insurance services and rural finance. "At Ant Financial, we say AI solves problems," Qi said in an interview in Hangzhou.