HANGZHOU, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 30, 2025--
Ant Group today published its 2024 Sustainability Report, highlighting its enhanced AI investments in advancing broad-based digital transformation. The report also shares how the group's sustainability commitments are carried onto new journeys of Ant International, Ant Digital Technologies, and OceanBase, three units that became independent following the 2024 reorganization.
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Ant Group 2024 Sustainability Report Highlights AI-Powered Digital Inclusion and New Initiatives From 3 Independent Units
Ant Group 2024 Sustainability Report Highlights AI-Powered Digital Inclusion and New Initiatives From 3 Independent Units
Ant Group 2024 Sustainability Report Highlights AI-Powered Digital Inclusion and New Initiatives From 3 Independent Units
Ant Group 2024 Sustainability Report Highlights AI-Powered Digital Inclusion and New Initiatives From 3 Independent Units
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250629805132/en/
The Report lays out how Ant Group harnessed new technology tools, expanded partnerships in 2024 to strengthen its 4 sustainability pillars: Technological Innovation, AI-Powered Digital Inclusion, Green and Low-Carbon Development, and Openness & Trustworthiness.
“2024 marks the 20th anniversary of Alipay and Ant Group. Over the past two decades, we have remained committed to leveraging innovation to make quality services more accessible for small entrepreneurs and ordinary consumers, so that the business and the life they treasure may flourish because of the work we do,” wrote Eric Jing, Chairman of Ant Group and Cyril Han, CEO of Ant Group in a letter at the beginning of the Report. “Technology matters not only when it soars above the stars, but even more when it puts light and warmth across our streets and neighborhoods. At the dawn of the age of AI, we are empowered to do more and better for small businesses and individuals.”
Technological Innovation
To drive continuous innovation for consumers, SMEs and partners, Ant Group has increased R&D investment for four consecutive years since 2021, reaching a record high of RMB 23.45 billion (~USD 3.26 billion) in 2024 (up 10.7% YoY). 1
AI-Powered Digital Inclusion
In 2024, Ant Group has made AI-powered services more accessible for its users, in sectors including healthcare, fintech and cross-border commerce.
AI healthcare solutions for hospitals, doctors and users
Digital payment & finance for SMEs
New advances in sustainability from 3 independently operated businesses
Ant Digital Technologies, OceanBase and Ant International, the three businesses that have been operating independently since 2024 have been making steady progress in sustainability.
Supporting the digital & green transformation of industries - Ant Digital Technologies:
Making AI-ready distributed database accessible for enterprise clients - OceanBase:
Enabling global connections in travel, empowering global commerce in trade and enabling the underserved to thrive - Ant International:
“Integrating commercial and social value creation isn't just our choice when we started – it is our guiding North Star,” wrote Sabrina Peng, Chief Sustainability Officer of Ant Group. “Meaningful change grows in daily action, not in words. By integrating commercial and social value creation, we hope to do our part in building a better world – especially for the general public and small businesses.”
Note: Since 2017, Ant Group has been publishing an annual sustainability report, following the Global Reporting Initiative standards. All figures in the release are as of December 31, 2024 unless otherwise specified. The 2024 Sustainability Report is availablein Chinese. The English-language version will be available on Ant Group’s official website soon.
About Ant Group
Ant Group aims to build the infrastructure and platforms to support the digital transformation of the service industry. Through continuous innovation, we strive to provide all consumers and small and micro businesses equal access to digital financial and other daily life services that are convenient, sustainable and inclusive.
For more information, please visit our website at www.antgroup.com or follow us on Twitter @AntGroup.
Ant Group 2024 Sustainability Report Highlights AI-Powered Digital Inclusion and New Initiatives From 3 Independent Units
Ant Group 2024 Sustainability Report Highlights AI-Powered Digital Inclusion and New Initiatives From 3 Independent Units
Ant Group 2024 Sustainability Report Highlights AI-Powered Digital Inclusion and New Initiatives From 3 Independent Units
Ant Group 2024 Sustainability Report Highlights AI-Powered Digital Inclusion and New Initiatives From 3 Independent Units
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump and top Iranian officials exchanged dueling threats Friday as widening protests swept across parts of the Islamic Republic, further escalating tensions between the countries after America bombed Iranian nuclear sites in June.
At least eight people have been killed so far in violence surrounding the demonstrations, which were sparked in part by the collapse of Iran’s rial currency but have increasingly seen crowds chanting anti-government slogans.
The protests, now in their sixth day, have become the biggest in Iran since 2022, when the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody triggered nationwide demonstrations. However, the protests have yet to be as widespread and intense as those surrounding the death of Amini, who was detained over not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.
Trump initially wrote on his Truth Social platform, warning Iran that if it “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the United States “will come to their rescue.”
“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump wrote, without elaborating.
Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker who serves as the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, alleged that Israel and the U.S. were stoking the demonstrations. He offered no evidence to support the allegation, which Iranian officials have repeatedly made during years of protests sweeping the country.
“Trump should know that intervention by the U.S. in the domestic problem corresponds to chaos in the entire region and the destruction of the U.S. interests,” Larijani wrote on X, which the Iranian government blocks. “The people of the U.S. should know that Trump began the adventurism. They should take care of their own soldiers.”
Larijani’s remarks likely referenced America’s wide military footprint in the region. Iran in June attacked Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar after the U.S. strikes on three nuclear sites during Israel's 12-day war on the Islamic Republic. No one was injured, though a missile did hit a structure there.
As of Friday, no major changes had been made to U.S. troop levels in the Middle East or their preparations following Trump’s social media posts, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans.
In a letter late Friday to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and the U.N. Security Council, Iran's envoy asked the world body to condemn the rhetoric and reaffirm the country's "inherent right to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national security, and to protect its people against any foreign interference.”
“The United States of America bears full responsibility for any consequences arising from these unlawful threats and any ensuing escalation," said Amir Saeid Iravani, Iranian ambassador to the U.N.
Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who previously was the council’s secretary for years, separately warned that “any interventionist hand that gets too close to the security of Iran will be cut.”
Trump's online message marked a direct sign of support for the demonstrators, something other American presidents have avoided out of concern that activists would be accused of working with the West. During Iran's 2009 Green Movement demonstrations, President Barack Obama held back from publicly backing the protests — something he said in 2022 “was a mistake.”
But such White House support still carries a risk.
“Though the grievances that fuel these and past protests are due to the Iranian government’s own policies, they are likely to use President Trump’s statement as proof that the unrest is driven by external actors,” said Naysan Rafati, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“But using that as a justification to crack down more violently risks inviting the very U.S. involvement Trump has hinted at,” he added.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei recently cited a list of Tehran’s longtime grievances regarding U.S. intervention, including a CIA-backed coup in 1953, the downing of a passenger jet in 1988 and the strikes in June.
Protests continued Friday in various cities in the country, even as life largely continued unaffected in the capital, Tehran. Demonstrations have reached over 100 locations in 22 of Iran's 31 provinces, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported. It said the death toll in the demonstrations rose to eight with the death of a demonstrator in Marvdasht in Iran's Fars province.
Demonstrators took to the streets in Zahedan in Iran's restive Sistan and Baluchestan province on the border with Pakistan. The burials of several demonstrators killed in the protests also took place Friday, sparking marches.
Videos purported to show mourners chasing off security force members who attended the funeral of 21-year-old Amirhessam Khodayari. He was killed Wednesday in Kouhdasht, over 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Tehran in Iran's Lorestan province.
Footage also showed Khodayari's father denying his son served in the all-volunteer Basij force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, as authorities claimed. The semiofficial Fars news agency later reported that there were now questions about the government's claims that he served.
Iran’s civilian government under reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has been trying to signal it wants to negotiate with protesters. However, Pezeshkian has acknowledged there is not much he can do as Iran’s rial has rapidly depreciated, with $1 now costing some 1.4 million rials. That sparked the initial protests.
The protests, taking root in economic issues, have heard demonstrators chant against Iran’s theocracy as well. Tehran has had little luck in propping up its economy in the months since the June war.
Iran recently said it was no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. However, those talks have yet to happen as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned Tehran against reconstituting its atomic program.
Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.
A woman shows a portrait of the late commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, on her smartphone during a ceremony commemorating his death anniversary at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People wave Iranian flags as one of them holds up a poster of the late commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, during a ceremony commemorating his death anniversary at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
This combo shows President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 29, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. and Iranian Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Bilal Hussein)
