Ant Group revealed a record 35 billion yuan (HK$40.58 billion) in research and development investment last year in its 2025 Sustainability Report, with R&D spending accounting for over 10 percent of revenue for four consecutive years.
The report showed that R&D efforts are focused on foundational artificial intelligence large language models, AI-powered payment and lifestyle services, and AI health services, among other areas.
As of February this year, Ant Group’s proprietary AI-native health application AQ has surpassed 100 million users, connecting over 5,000 medical institutions across China. Approximately 2,000 doctors have set up AI avatars on the platform to provide 24/7 online services, with over 30 percent of users being middle-aged and elderly. The app supports more than a dozen dialects and safeguards the health of 84 million users in third-tier and below cities.
The company has also launched an AI-powered Abao in Alipay, which helps approximately 1 billion users access tens of thousands of services through AI agents, with invitation-based testing already underway. As of May this year, Alipay has completed 300 million AI agent-powered payments. The company now has a full-stack AI-native payment system, encompassing consumer-facing AI Pay and AI Wallet, as well as enterprise-facing AI Collect and Token Pay solutions.
In terms of technological R&D, the company invested last year in developing the Bailing large language model family and the Lingbo embodied foundational model, and open-sourced the Ling-1T series of trillion-parameter large language models, as well as four core embodied intelligence models.
On the green and low-carbon front, the company has achieved operational carbon neutrality for five consecutive years. In 2025, absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon emissions decreased by 55.32 percent compared to the baseline year, and the company remains committed to its 2030 net-zero emissions target.
