Ant Group’s blockchain arm Zan wants to be the Google or Microsoft of Web3 in Hong Kong

The head of the year-old blockchain venture says he aims to leverage Hong Kong’s supportive environment to build a critical Web3 services company

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Ant Group launches its Zan blockchain project with the with venture’s former CEO Zhang Hui at the Inclusion conference in Shanghai in September 2023. Photo: Handout

Xinmei Shen

Published: 7:00am, 31 Aug 2024Updated: 11:30am, 31 Aug 2024

Corrected [11:24am, 31 Aug, 2024]

[11:24am, 31 Aug, 2024]
A previous version of this story identified Zan's CEO as Zhang Hui. The current CEO is Cobe Zhang Chenguang.

Ant Digital Technologies, a subsidiary of the Chinese fintech giant Ant Group, wants its new Hong Kong blockchain venture Zan to become a major technology provider in the global Web3 industry, harnessing the city’s supportive environment for the sector, Zan’s chief executive said in an interview.

Ant started the blockchain project in September last year with the goal of creating a critical technology company at the heart of Web3, the way Google and Microsoft became vital service providers to traditional industries in the Web 2.0 era, Zan CEO Cobe Zhang Chenguang told the Post on Thursday.

“We hope to bring the technology services that Ant has accumulated over the years, including not only blockchain, but also those we have developed in the field of financial compliance, to Web3 developers,” Zhang said.

Cobe Zhang Chenguang took the reins as Zan CEO in August 2024 after previously serving as the company‘s chief operating officer. Photo: Handout

He added that Zan is aiming for its suite of technical solutions for Web3 developers, including services as a node provider and for know-your-customer verification, to achieve the largest market share in Asia-Pacific within two or three years, Zhang said.

Ant Group is an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the Post.

Ant Digital Technologies already operates AntChain, currently China’s biggest enterprise-facing blockchain platform. The company had 26.5 per cent of the blockchain-as-a-service market in China in 2023, while rival Tencent Holdings was the second-largest provider with 18 per cent of the market, according to a report by research firm IDC in July.

Ant established Zan in Hong Kong to expand its blockchain services outside mainland China, according to Zhang.