Artificial intelligence is expected to outshine Web3 at this year’s FinTech Week, which kicks off at the end of the month, as organisers InvestHK and Finoverse tease a slate of mainland Chinese exhibitors looking to ride the generative AI wave.
“[There is] a huge increase in mainland Chinese companies’ representation at this year’s event … [and a] big, big focus on AI and advanced technologies,” said Anthony Sar, founder and CEO of Finoverse. “AI, especially driven a lot by China tech, is one of the prominent trends that’s very different.”
Two years ago, Hong Kong used FinTech Week to focus on a regulatory overhaul meant to turn the city into a virtual asset hub. One of the headlining speakers was FTX founder Sam Bankman Fried, who is now serving a 25-year prison sentence for fraud.
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Since then, multiple challenges have emerged, including a cryptocurrency market downturn – partially triggered by the 2022 collapse of FTX – major frauds in Hong Kong, and a regulatory regime for exchanges that some have criticised as too strict to stimulate business activity. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT has led to AI projects sucking up much of the technology industry’s attention.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried speaking remotely at Hong Kong FinTech Week on October 31, 2022. 31OCT22 SCMP/ Matt Haldane alt=FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried speaking remotely at Hong Kong FinTech Week on October 31, 2022. 31OCT22 SCMP/ Matt Haldane>
FinTech Week is adapting to the times. The focus has turned towards Hong Kong’s role as a “connector” between international business and China, the world’s second-largest AI market behind the US. This year’s conference, which runs from October 28 to November 1, will bring some participants across the border to Shenzhen to visit companies in China’s southern technology hub, including the offices of SenseTime, Tencent Holdings and ByteDance.
Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Post owner Alibaba Group Holding, is sponsoring the event for the first time this year, and CEO Eric Jing is one of the high-profile speakers. Representatives from Tencent, Xiaomi, JD.com and SenseTime will also be there.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about connecting to international markets. Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and so on,” said King Leung, global head of financial services at InvestHK, the Hong Kong government’s investment promotion arm. “The one thing that I think we have to appreciate is that Hong Kong is just a lot of regional, international headquarters of different financial institutions.”
This presents an opportunity for AI firms that come to the city to pitch a proof of concept to these institutions and then offer to set up similar solutions in other markets, according to Leung.
As Hong Kong seeks to maintain its status as Asia’s finance hub, AI has proven to have commercial applicability in a way blockchain has not. Many blockchain projects in financial institutions have either fizzled out or stagnated. Meanwhile, companies are racing to integrate generative AI into their services by helping with things such as regulatory compliance and investment advice.
The organisers say there is no doubt that a lot of attention has shifted to AI, but Web3 remains a key part of the show. “We want to highlight the fact that there’s a big presence of Chinese companies, but it’s not limited to that,” Sar said.
Eddie Yue (middle), the chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, looks at an e-wallet containing 700 yuan of the Chinese digital currency e-CNY at FinTech Week in Hong Kong, November 2, 2023. Photo: Matt Haldane alt=Eddie Yue (middle), the chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, looks at an e-wallet containing 700 yuan of the Chinese digital currency e-CNY at FinTech Week in Hong Kong, November 2, 2023. Photo: Matt Haldane>
FinTech Week’s shine for Web3 players has not worn off yet. There are more speakers at this year’s event with a background in Web3 than in AI. Most of the roughly 130 speakers come from a traditional finance background.
The organisers argued that it will still take time for Web3 to take off, noting that many of the major players are still building out infrastructure.
“Over the past two years, since the policy announcement, we have seen mid-to-high double-digit growth in this segment,” King said. “These are world-class companies, but because they are more like infrastructure people, that’s why they are not able to attract as much attention.”
King said a 1996 quote from Bill Gates illustrates what is happening in Web3: “People often overestimate what will happen in the next two years and underestimate what will happen in 10.”
As the FinTech Week organisers look ahead to next year, when the event will celebrate its tenth anniversary, they are also thinking about how the show’s priorities reflect Hong Kong’s role as a place to experiment. In the future, the event may not be about blockchain or AI, but whatever is next.
“What we are seeing now is very, very clear, [which] is that Hong Kong will become the sort of macro sandbox for frontier technologies,” King said. “FinTech Week can potentially become so much like the incubation platform for a lot of these global frontier technologies firms to congregate in Hong Kong, sell to the financial services sector, then grow to other parts of the world.”
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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