Ling Ting | Ant Financial Layout Blockchain Core 3 Questions
Jiang Guofei reacts quickly, speaks fast, and speaks very aggressively, while Zhang Hui is unhurried and eloquent. The personalities of these two core characters seem to represent two different temperaments of the ant blockchain: fast running in business and technology, attacking cities and strongholds, and extremely aggressive; while the attitude towards the industry and technology is calm, calm and peaceful. reason. One fast and one slow, one piece and one relaxation, harmonious and cohesive.
—— Tang Xialing
Three years ago, when he first joined Ant Financial, Jiang Guofei didn't know what to do. Jing Xiandong, who was the president of Ant Financial Services at the time, did not give him specific business or assessment indicators. He only had one sentence: you do innovative business.
What is innovative business? He pondered for a long time.
Before coming to Ant, Jiang Guofei worked at NEC. He was the head of the company’s American Research Institute. He led the team to make great achievements in the fields of IoT, big data analysis, AI, cloud platform, computer security and software-definable network. He has published more than 160 first-class papers on the Internet, and has nearly 100 U.S. invention patents. He has won the company's "Annual Meritorious Award" for business contributions and is one of the few people who have won awards for NEC's global R&D so far.
Today, Jiang Guofei is the vice president of Ant Financial Services Group, the president of the smart technology business group, and the core leader of the ant blockchain.
After 3 years of development, Ant Blockchain has come out of a rising market: it has built a "double billion" financial-grade blockchain underlying platform that can accommodate 1 billion accounts and 1 billion daily transactions, and has implemented it in more than 40 scenarios. application.
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"Somatosensory" innovation in "Payment QR Code"
What is innovative business? The process of finding direction is difficult and anxious.
By chance, he found that it was inconvenient for small and micro merchants in Alipay to confirm the money to the account after receiving the payment, so he made a payment collection IOT device - Alipay Box, and now the merchant can confirm it only by listening to "Alipay received xx yuan".
"I arrived at the company in February, and the products were sold on the market in October."
Before joining Ant, Jiang Guofei was doing "tall" things. For example, he once provided solutions for the combination of industrial Internet and big data, and ran many nuclear and thermal power plants, covering almost every corner of the world.
"Compared to nuclear power plants, is it too childish to be a payment device?" I asked.
"No. The core of what we do in the United States and China is the same. In the end, it all falls into helping people solve valuable problems. Behind the payment code are tiny individuals, and their combined power is very powerful. Offline small and micro With a 'QR code', the operator has an entry ticket to the digital age, which is an innovation with 'body sensation'." Jiang Guofei has quick thinking, extremely fast speech, and, with clear views, never speaks in a muddle.
Jiang Guofei had personally experienced this physical sensation.
Once, at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, he wanted to lobby a prestigious technology giant for cooperation, but he hadn't been able to impress him after communicating for a long time. He invited people to dinner, and when he walked out of the small restaurant, he swiped his mobile phone to pay. The voice of the Alipay box rang in the corner, and Alipay credited XX yuan.
He seized the opportunity to tell people: "We made that product, you want to be with us, what we do is perceptual, and it can quickly reach the rigid needs of a large number of users." The other party was quickly moved.
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Born to solve trust problems
This time, Jiang Guofei aimed at the blockchain.
At the beginning of Taobao's establishment, there was no transaction volume for a long time. What should I do if the buyer pays but the seller does not deliver the goods? Until the launch of Alipay, using the platform to guarantee transactions, solved the problem of distrust between people and people in transactions, and thus opened a breakthrough. Today, its mobile monthly active users have reached 721 million.
Ten years later, Ant Financial launched Zhima Credit to solve the trust challenge between merchants and consumers, allowing more and more contract-fulfilling users to enjoy scenarios such as renting cars without deposits, renting houses, and paying after diagnosis and treatment.
From secured transactions to Sesame Credit to Ant Blockchain, building a trust mechanism through technology makes trust easy. "Trust" has become the core keyword of Ant Financial's 15-year development.
Inside Ant Financial, Jing Xiandong, chairman and CEO of Ant Financial, is known as the "little prince of the blockchain". He believes that the blockchain is the most ideal technical solution to "solve the trust problem".
The essential difference between the digital world and the physical world is that things in the physical world really exist and will not disappear out of thin air. But the digital world is different, data can be deleted or copied without leaving a trace.
Blockchain technology can make the digital world as authentic and credible as the physical world. The digital records on the blockchain cannot be tampered with or forged. Smart contracts allow everyone to collaborate more efficiently, thereby establishing a credible digital economic order.
Ant Financial believes that when the trust problem is solved by "cancelling the cumbersome intermediate process", the efficiency of finance and business will be improved unprecedentedly, and the cost will be further reduced. This is the general trend of the Internet of Everything era in the future.
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The Red Line of Ant Blockchain
In order to meet this general trend, Jing Xiandong set the red line of "do three things and don't do things" for the ant blockchain.
1. Use blockchain to solve practical problems and make finance and business credible, transparent and efficient.
2. Continuously overcome the technical barriers to the large-scale practical application of the blockchain.
3. Work with partners to build an open blockchain ecosystem.
At the same time, whether it is now or in the future, Ant Financial will never touch:
1. "Air coins" without any real value.
1. Do not make technical applications that violate laws and regulations.
3. Do not do anything that harms the security and privacy of user data.
The large-scale commercial application of blockchain is a world-class problem. This technology has been widely criticized by all walks of life because it has not been transformed into actual productivity. But in the past three years, Jiang Guofei led the team to hand over the answer sheet: for three consecutive years, it has become the company that has applied for the most blockchain technology patents in the world. At the same time, it has implemented applications in more than 40 scenarios, most of which are concentrated in the field of people's livelihood:
In 2018, the world's first blockchain cross-border remittance was launched in Hong Kong, and it arrived in Hong Kong to the Philippines in 3 seconds. Previously, this process took hours or even days;
In the field of product traceability, Ant Blockchain started from the traceability of milk powder in Australia and New Zealand. By 2018, Double Eleven, 150 million Haitao products realized the traceability of origin;
In the field of supply chain finance, relying on the accounts receivable of core enterprises and uniting the participants of the supply chain, the original 3-month account period is shortened to 1 second.
At the product level, Ant Financial has launched the self-developed alliance blockchain technology, financial-level blockchain BaaS platform, supply chain financial collaboration platform Shuangliantong, trusted certificate storage platform, etc.
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Every time I go out to give a speech, I have to bring a few people back
Behind the staged results, talent is a decisive factor.
When Jiang Guofei was in the United States, there was a doctoral team of about 150 people working together, focusing on the research and development of cutting-edge core technologies. After returning to China, he started to build a blockchain team from scratch. He is also known as the "most money-burning" person in Ant Financial, and the money is mainly spent on talents.
How to recruit people? Jiang Guofei kept an eye on various speech invitations, and he set a goal for himself: "I will give a speech somewhere, and I will bring a few people back."
Today, many backbones of the Ant blockchain are brought back by him in various speech occasions.
"The person in charge of the cloud computing service platform was brought back when I held a meeting in Shanghai. I went to the United States to give a speech and brought back a group of technical talents; last time I went to Columbia University to give a speech and brought back three or four backbones. There are many He has worked in technology companies such as Facebook for many years, and has a good academic background and research background."
Some of them were moved by Jiang Guofei's enthusiasm, some by his knowledge, and some by his vision and mission.
"The quality of talents is very important. In the early days, I really had no choice. When I went out to give a speech, I must first see who the audience is. In such a short period of time, Ant Blockchain has gone from being unknown to now becoming a visible application service. A global technology brand is the unremitting efforts of the entire team." Jiang Guofei said.
Today, Ant Financial has a core technical team of more than 100 people, 80% of whom are engaged in technology research and development and have an international background.
However, when the core team of Ant was formed, it was the craziest time of the digital currency bubble. Did the market situation affect the team? This made Ling Ting very curious (WeChat ID: lingtingqkl)
"Basically none. There is no good or evil in technology, and human nature has choices. I have written more than 160 academic papers and nearly 100 US invention patents. The entire team has received professional scientific training. Probably the underlying gene is: the basic logic does not make sense I don't dare to do things like this," Jiang Guofei said.
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Jiang Guofei's Ant Blockchain 3 Questions
"Ant has been implemented in more than 40 industries, so what is your core judgment? Which ones can be used, which ones can't be used, and how to use them?" I kept asking.
Jiang Guofei cleared his throat and said quickly, "Every time I ask myself three questions."
The first is what problem to solve. Blockchain is a technical bottom layer, which must be combined with actual scenarios. It may be to solve the problem of trust in the supply chain, it may be to solve the problem of circulation or splitting, or it may be to solve the problem of not being tricky in the middle of the traceability of goods. First of all, the positioning must be clear, what problem to solve, this is the technical value we have always adhered to.
Second, I will ask myself, must I use the blockchain? Trust, disputes, conflicts of interest, etc., some can be seen clearly, but many are false needs. Therefore, it is necessary to answer clearly: why must the blockchain be used.
The third thing I will think about is where the whole business closed loop is. How to coordinate the participants, business processes, and implementation paths, and finally how to achieve a closed business loop. These questions will help us make a comprehensive business judgment. If it can solve practical problems, it will inevitably bring practical value. Only by solving fundamental problems can it bring lasting value.
Regarding how to commercialize Ant’s overall business, Jing Xiandong also has the same thinking: Ant Financial’s management will not talk about specific money or predict future revenue, profit, and rate of return. We often discuss how many people can be changed by doing this, how many small and micro enterprises can be served, and whether a place can achieve green and sustainable development because of us.
"I think real innovation will win the respect of others. The energy and brainpower consumed by innovation is endless. When you are going crazy and have a feeling of anxiety in your stomach, innovation will grow slowly. Innovation is not just thinking, but also Only by in-depth research, understanding, and integration with users can we find something." Jing Xiandong said.
On September 26, at the Computing Conference, Ant released a new generation of cross-chain product ODATS (Open Data Access Trusted Service), and the Ant blockchain began a journey of interconnection from one platform to multiple platforms.
Zhang Hui, Technical Director of Ant Financial’s Blockchain Platform Department and Head of the Blockchain Laboratory of Alibaba Dharma Academy, predicts that in the next three to five years, there may be intercommunication between the on-chain and off-chain, as well as the intercommunication between the physical world and the digital world. , and eventually form a huge value Internet, thereby realizing the Internet of Everything.
"We believe that the Internet of Value, the Internet of Everything, will eventually come."
"Ling Ting Blockchain" is the first blockchain business observation column on the whole network, edited by Babbitt, Tang Xialing, the winner of the China News Award, and her team. Historical manuscript.
Produced by: Babbitt | Ling Ting Blockchain
Joint production: Lianwen Mars Finance Carbon Chain Value Chain Dede Shallot Vernacular Blockchain Huoxun Finance
Supporting Media: Land-Based Research Institute, Bullock Technology, World Chain Finance, Big Pipi Shrimp, Ear Finance, Blockchain Headlines, Chain World, TD Finance, Running Finance, FN, Bebo Finance, Curvature Zone, Dolphin Blockchain
