Ant Group, a leading provider of financial services technology in China officially launched a new brand on July 23, called AntChain, for the company's blockchain-based solutions. Since 2015, Ant Group has been investing significantly in the research and development of blockchain technologies to strengthen transparency and build trust in industries that traditionally involve large numbers of participants and complex processes. According to a report released by the Patent Protection Association of China, AntChain holds the most blockchain patents worldwide with 212 patents as of May 14. Ant Group has the largest productivity blockchain platform in China, with the ability to process and support one billion user accounts and one billion transactions every day. Currently, over 100 million digital assets are uploaded onto AntChain on average every day. Ant Group also unveiled AntChain Station, an all-in-one workstation that reduces the deployment time of the company's blockchain-based solutions by as much as ninety percent. This enables enterprise clients to set up AntChain within an hour, which is significantly lower than the previous average set-up time of 10 hours.

On September 3, people familiar with the matter disclosed that the Saudi Sovereign wealth Fund PIF may consider investing in Ant Group IPO. Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Wealth Fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), is considering an investment in the initial public offering of Chinese fintech company Ant Group. In August, Ant filed to list its shares in Hong Kong and on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in an IPO that could be worth as much as $30bn. If the investment goes ahead, it would be the Saudi fund’s most high profile direct investment in a Chinese company. Ant’s initial public offering would be the first simultaneous listing in Hong Kong and the year-old STAR Market, boosting Hong Kong’s status as an international IPO market and helping enhance STAR as a capital markets centre.