Editor-in-Chief Interview | Liu Weiguang, Vice President of Ant Financial Services: Unmanned Areas Coming Out of Blockchain Business Exploration

On July 26th, the “Ant Block Chain CHAINAGE Innovation Day” held by Ant Financial was held in Hangzhou. After the meeting, Liu Weiguang, vice president of Ant Financial, accepted an exclusive interview with Babbitt editor Tang Xiuling.

Liu Weiguang worked for Oracle, EMC, Pivotal, and created the product division of Exadata Greater China during his work at Oracle. After the work of EMC, he created the Pivotal Software Greater China division, deepened the enterprise software market and the open source software market for many years; After joining Ant Financial Service, he was responsible for financial technology commercial promotion and ecological construction. He used the technology of ant gold service to promote the digital transformation of banking institutions. Recently, he joined the ant Jinfu blockchain camp and was responsible for the commercial promotion and ecological construction of ant blockchain. External technology and other work. During this visit, he talked about the layout of the ant blockchain, the market changes in the past two years, and the difficulty of commercial landing; and revealed that Ant Financial will release a grand conception on ecological construction at the Yunqi Conference in September. .

Liu Weiguang, Vice President of Ant Financial Services

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1. Tang Xia Ling: Do you have any research on libra? What do you think of libra?

Liu Weiguang : Facebook's launch of Libra is based on two anchors. First, it is linked to a basket of fiat currencies, using 1:1 reserve assets as a guarantee, which is 100% reserve preparation; on the other hand, it anchors 2.7 billion The real cross-border capital flow demand of global users solves the painful problems of high cross-border transaction cost, long time and poor efficiency. Therefore, we believe that the whole society should look at the emergence of Libra with an open and cautious attitude. Ant Financial is a technology company. We insist on promoting greater social and industrial value in the new technological transformation. The blockchain is an area that we attach great importance to. In recent years, we have been conducting research and technology exploration and promoting it. Different industry scenes landed.

2, Tang Xia Ling: This year, major companies are running into the commercial era. There is also a voice that says "the first year of blockchain technology commercial use." From the perspective of your perception in the market, what are the similarities and differences between this year and last year?

Liu Weiguang : The first is that the market is more rational this year. Through the popularity of blockchain knowledge in the past two years, everyone has some more clarifications in concept: for example, what is digital currency, what is air currency, why it is anchored, and everyone's awareness of the basic concepts in this field has improved. And the emergence of Libra has made the community pay more attention to blockchain technology and the resulting digital currency.

The second is the entry of more chain companies. In addition to ants, many companies like Tencent, JD, and Ping An are doing commercial exploration and practice of blockchain. Everyone collects firewood with high flames. Although there is competition to a certain extent, everyone is exploring the application of the scene, so that the blockchain can be truly combined with the core scene of the user to solve the trust and connection problems between enterprises. If we still stay in the illusory concept and theoretical innovation, or that the existing blockchain gradually declines in business or data after supporting the business and data running, this is not the real core of the blockchain. value. The enterprise truly turns the past business process from a fragmented and complex connection or an inefficient + part of the link invisible + line down to the main transaction process into a truly digital efficient connection, while at the end of the chain Kilometers superimpose financial services capabilities, which is where the blockchain's future changes to commercial infrastructure.

3. Tang Xia Ling: For example? What are the scenarios of fragmentation to efficient connections?

Liu Weiguang : In fact, after the analysis and research of the team of Ant Financial Group Block and the co-creation with customers, we found that there is a huge room for efficiency and trust in all aspects of society, no matter from the financial cross. Institutional trading behavior is also the connection between the railway air traffic logistics and the transfer of bills; there is a wide range of space from the perspective of commercial digital deposits and the in-depth application scenarios of various licenses within government agencies. The ant blockchain team is not only technically committed to lead, but another mission is to intensively work on the business scene, we are more advocating to do valuable and thick blockchain application scenarios.

For example, supply chain finance: there are many levels in the original production relationship, each link is invisible, the information between them is opaque, the mutual power is difficult, the trust is difficult, and the communication cost is high; for example, between the insurance company and the hospital, When it comes to various quick payouts and major illness claims, it is very difficult and costly to get the patient's medical records before the patient. The time period is very long. It is very difficult to get information between the hospital and the hospital. Some can get it. As a reference, if you can't get it, you can only have the patient repeat the test. The insurance claim process will involve insurance companies, hospitals, patients and other institutions. The information flow and mutual identification confirmation of the claims process are very important, and the process is long and costly. A lot of manpower and material resources; there are many "such as" in different industries…

Blockchain technology can completely link these fragmented connections, become efficient and traceable, eliminate the hidden rules and gray areas in the industry, and ultimately bring a quick and convenient payout experience to every common citizen. This is the change that technology brings to society. At present, the Ant Financial Blockchain has been applied in more than 40 scenarios.

4. Tang Xia Ling: But the leading edge of technology does not represent the success of business. From the historical development stage, what stage is technology at present, and at what stage is business?

Liu Weiguang : The technological development is uneven, and the blockchain commercial landing in the world is still in the early stage. Technically, it is a common practice to build a platform using blockchain open source technology, while ants are the core technology of choosing their own R&D blockchain. And continue to develop technology components with high added value in the blockchain, many technical features of the open source blockchain and the currency are closely related, and ants in the research and development to consider the special requirements of enterprise-level applications. Business scenarios promote technology development, while technology advances business scene innovation. Good technology and products must be combined with R&D and use. The feedback from the market continues to promote the iteration of products. Today, many R&D personnel of ants will go to the frontline customers to listen to customers' ideas, continuously improve products, and continuously add new functions.

Business and technology are the spiral relationship of mutual support. Without business, technology does not have a training ground. Only commercial, no technology is a castle in the air. The biggest difference between Ant Financial and other technology companies is that we have our own training grounds. For example, tracing the source, there are Tmall to help us practice; we have to do cross-border trade, we have our own international e-commerce trade scene. First practice and practice in your own scenes, with large-scale applications, and then move to the outside world of a broader business world. In the future, we will put more scenes in the Alibaba economy on the ant blockchain platform, which is the best proof of technology. Just as we opened up the distributed technology platform that supported the double eleven peak, it was immediately welcomed by financial customers.

5. Tang Xialing: What are the key core principles of the ant Jinfu layout blockchain?

Liu Weiguang : First, because the ant jinfu is derived from the property of inclusive finance, the ants are very insistent on self-study of technology. We never plagiarize others, and they encourage themselves to innovate and create themselves. This is the unique gene of ants. In the history of ant development, from Alipay to Yubao, from Sesame Credit to Mutual Treasure, from distributed database to ant blockchain, we are not copying others and choosing to create ourselves. The second is to insist on the exploration of the scene. The technology is developed, but the technology is used.

6. Tang Xia Ling: Many products of ants are based on solving the problem of trust. For example, Sesame Credit, blockchain is also called “the machine for solving trust”. Can you share with us your “trust”? understanding?

Liu Weiguang : The issue of trust has always been accompanied by the development of Ant Financial Services , from Alipay to solve the problem of secured transactions to Sesame Credit to solve the trust problems of merchants and people, and today the blockchain aims to solve the problem of trust between enterprises.

From an individual point of view, with a person first do not know, you do not believe me, I do not believe you. In order to gain trust, I must meet with him, sign the contract, seal it, and also the legal protection and the identification of the regulatory body, and finally confirm the trust relationship. In the business world, it is not only the trust between people, but also the trust between institutions and institutions, such as the hospitals and insurance companies mentioned above.

Among the clients we have worked with, we have found that many links involving government agencies and various financial institutions are quite long. There are many similar places in the provident fund, social security, pension, enterprise annuity, etc., and even some The so-called most complicated process in history. In some aspects, it takes several months from the start to the end. Now with blockchain technology, it can be realized in one second. All the transactions in the chain are well documented, the information on the chain runs at high speed, and the entities on the chain are trusted. , information sharing on the chain, the chain provides a lot of value-added services, the chain of financial services gradually SaaS. The generation of blockchain will certainly promote the improvement of social civilization, so that more large organizations have greater driving force, because they can bring a good experience to their customers, and at the same time do their cooperation and data interaction between enterprises. Provide the best and fastest path. In the future, “winding up” is no longer an innovation, no longer an attempt, but a need for a king.

Therefore, I believe that the blockchain carries a new underlying value. On the bottom of this technology, we can complete the interconnection and mutual trust between enterprises. This is why we say that the consumer Internet is more for personal services and building information bridges. . The value Internet is a trust bridge for enterprises to serve, establish enterprise interconnection and mutual trust, and establish data interaction.

7. Tang Xialing: There are some fundamentalists in the blockchain field. Have you ever touched these people? What are the similarities and differences between this person and the big company blockchain?

Liu Weiguang : I think that the blockchain is a marathon run and must be able to withstand it. Since the invention of Bitcoin by Nakamoto in 2008, the blockchain has been in existence for ten years. In addition to Bitcoin, there has not been a large-scale replacement of the traditional model of the past in the core system of an industry. Objectively speaking, we can't say today that the ant Jinfu blockchain has subverted something. But in this process, you must have enough stamina. Endurance = funds + R & D investment + adhere to the business direction + enough trial and error time.

Yesterday we discussed three main types of blockchain entrepreneurship: traditional financial institutions, large technology giants and startups. The bigger problem facing startups may be the determination. I saw that some mines will be mined, air coins will be issued, and public chains will be used for a while. The staff is unstable, the research and development is unstable, and the direction is not clear. The intermediate change is caused by the cause of endurance and the lack of patience in the capital market. We actually do one thing very rarely. Before choosing a direction, the time of argument is very long, and then continue to invest, friends who make time, waiting for the bloom of value. By the time when the 5G large-scale commercialization is coming, many of the ant's technical reserves today will show value at that time, and even push the market turning point through technology. But we must be reluctant and seize the opportunity, which we will verify in the future.

8. Tang Xia Ling: Many people now like to compare the development of the Internet with the development of the blockchain. You also have a wealth of experience in the Internet. Do you think there is contrast? What are the similarities and differences?

Liu Weiguang : When I helped banks and other financial institutions to do digital transformation top-level design, peer-to-peer communication, one case can be. But in the blockchain, pay attention to consensus, cross-organizational cross-organizational process traversal, communicate with each subject in the process, and let the main body reach a consensus. In fact, the underlying development of technology is still good. In fact, the most difficult thing is to make everyone's consensus and subsequent platform governance, the process of finding consensus and finding value in the early stage is the most difficult. What do each subject have to do, what are the rights and responsibilities of each other, what is the process, and what is the collaborative relationship, which has great coordination difficulties. This is the biggest difference between blockchain and all other technical forms. Traditional technology promotion like sales or BD, in the blockchain commercial promotion process, I found myself seem more like COO.

9. Tang Xialing: How did you personally touch the blockchain? Do you think the blockchain technology is interesting?

Liu Weiguang : After I entered the ant, I was studying it. Recently, I mainly studied commercial applications. It feels very difficult, there is no successful path reference, no one in the world has succeeded in the country, but in turn thinks: It is not difficult to have no sense of accomplishment. It is more valuable and fulfilling to do more difficult things, create bigger winds, and do things that others can't or can't imagine.

Because of the bitcoin, the decentralization of the blockchain is very obvious. However, when entering the business world, too many centralized entities connect the surrounding scenes. How to solve this contradiction, how to solve this balanced intermediate point, this It is through the perspective of technological innovation that it is also forcing ants to attack in many technical fields, about security, about super nodes, about cryptography, about cross-chain collaboration, and so on. This also explains from another angle why ants should develop their own blockchain technology rather than standing on the shoulders of open source.

10. Tang Xia Ling: What plans will there be in the ant blockchain in the near future?

Liu Weiguang : I will sell you first, and I will not tell you. Probably a blockchain technology development alliance, we will use the blockchain approach to manage and motivate the alliance. The core ability of Ant Financial is still the underlying technology. We can't do industry application. There are too many industries. We don't have so many people, and we are not good at it. So we hope that some characters can be added and can help us to explore together. The application of the scene, we will break through many domestic loose organizations, forums, alliance management methods. The name of the big plan has been designed, and we will start another plan. For the blockchain project with value, thickness and even temperature, please keep looking forward to it and wait for the official release in September.

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