As artificial intelligence transforms industries worldwide, China's technology giants are no longer content with domestic dominance. They are setting their sights on international markets, transitioning from basic technology exports to comprehensive AI-driven solutions that reshape global competition.
Hong Kong FinTech Week: A Barometer for China's AI Globalization
The annual Hong Kong FinTech Week, recognized as the territory's largest financial technology event, served as a key indicator of China's AI expansion in 2025. Against the backdrop of AI-driven transformation, the event highlighted how artificial intelligence is redefining global financial services.
Major Chinese technology firms including Ant Digital Technologies, Tencent, and Huawei showcased their latest AI advancements. Ant Digital presented its full-scenario AI upgrade solutions featuring the Agentar intelligent platform, ZOLOZ security system, and AI-powered mobile banking applications. The event demonstrated how Chinese companies are evolving from infrastructure providers to innovators in AI applications.
From Infrastructure to AI Solutions: The Evolution of Globalization
When Ant Digital first expanded overseas in 2017, it primarily offered basic technological infrastructure for mobile internet markets. Today, its international business has rapidly transformed toward AI applications, with comprehensive product solutions marking this strategic shift.
This transition reflects Chinese tech firms' growing competitiveness in global markets. Their experience in China's complex, large-scale domestic market has equipped them with unique capabilities to understand diverse international requirements. Combined with extensive localization experience, these companies demonstrate remarkable adaptability in meeting varied market needs.
The "Time Machine Effect": Exporting Chinese Experience
Global technology development often follows a "time machine" pattern, where innovations in more advanced markets can be replicated elsewhere. China's mobile payment revolution provides a prime example.
While China achieved widespread mobile payment adoption by 2018, countries like the Philippines remained entrenched in traditional financial systems, where only 31% of citizens maintained bank accounts. Ant Group's ZOLOZ technology helped transform this landscape, reducing account opening times from potentially one year to just three minutes at Philippine institutions like GCash and Metrobank.
Technology Export: The New Paradigm
Recent years have seen technology exports become the primary mode of Chinese tech globalization. This represents a new chapter in China's overseas expansion, building on earlier phases of commodity exports and infrastructure development.
Wang Bo, General Manager of Ant Digital's Strategic Business and Solutions Division, explained how the company's overseas expansion helped build mobile payment ecosystems abroad. Key capabilities include mobile development platforms that transformed banking apps with poor ratings into highly-rated applications, and ZOLOZ's identity verification technology that streamlined financial services.
Enterprise AI: The Next Frontier
The AI revolution is driving a shift from traditional technology exports to integrated solutions combining large language models, cloud computing, and data processing. IDC projects global AI system spending will reach $400 billion by 2027, with financial services leading adoption at $97 billion.
At Hong Kong FinTech Week, Ant Digital unveiled its full-stack enterprise AI products designed for financial institutions. Unlike previous modular exports, these solutions integrate across entire business chains including wealth management, risk control, and intelligent marketing.
Practical applications demonstrate AI's transformative potential. In banking, conversational interfaces allow customers to perform transactions through natural speech rather than navigating complex menus. AI also enhances security by detecting forged documents and videos, while automating processes like due diligence to reduce costs.
China's Tech Globalization 3.0: The AI Super Application Era
Chinese technology globalization has progressed through three distinct phases: telecommunications infrastructure, cloud computing foundations, and now AI-powered super applications. However, enterprise AI adoption abroad faces significant challenges due to uneven digital maturity across markets.
Successful expansion requires deep industry expertise and commercial experience, along with robust technological capabilities, risk management systems, and security safeguards. Chinese firms like Ant Digital benefit from experience serving China's massive domestic market and handling complex implementations across industries.
As AI reshapes global business, Chinese technology companies are demonstrating their strengths in practical applications, scenario innovation, and operational reliability. Their expansion represents not just deeper integration into worldwide innovation networks, but also offers new models for global technological development.