Ant Group, the fintech behind Alipay, saw its quarterly profit plummet by roughly 91% to approximately 1.2 billion yuan, about $57 million, in the third quarter of 2025. This sharp decline stems from massive investments in artificial intelligence, spanning healthcare applications, large language models, and payment tools within the Alipay ecosystem. The company allocated 23.45 billion yuan to R&D in 2024, a 10.7% increase from the previous year. Its notable AI products include the AQ health app, launched in June 2025 and reaching 100 million users within a month, alongside Alipay’s AI Pay features. These strategic investments occur amid intense regulatory scrutiny, with Chinese authorities having halted Ant Group’s historic IPO in late 2020.
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