HONG KONG, April 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- On April 20, Ant Digital Technologies introduced its architectural vision for the agent economy at Hong Kong Web3 Festival — the "4R Full-Stack Architecture," comprising four layers: Agentic Runtime, Payment Rails, Agent Registry, and Root Infrastructure — aimed at providing AI agents with foundational technical infrastructure covering identity, payments, risk control, and regulatory compliance.
In her keynote, Dr. Yan Ying, CTO of Ant Digital Technologies identified four fundamental fault lines in the current foundations of the agent economy: execution failures arising from prompt logic vulnerabilities, an accountability vacuum caused by AI's lack of verifiable identity, transactional barriers stemming from payment gateways designed around human principals, and collaboration risks that emerge when unfamiliar agents cannot establish mutual trust. "This cannot be resolved by patching software," she stated. "It requires a ground-up redesign at the infrastructure layer."
The core product of the Agentic Runtime layer is DT Claw, which embeds the CARLI safety model to enforce behavioral constraints on agents at the execution level, supports multi-model compatibility and financial-grade compliance standards, and is designed to ensure that every AI operation is controllable, auditable, and recoverable.
The Payment Rails layer establishes a native on-chain payment channel that integrates agent-driven intelligent decision-making with verifiable credential chain technology, enabling precise identification of payment intent and end-to-end security while delivering full transaction transparency and immutability. For high-frequency micropayment scenarios, the platform builds a native instant settlement network supporting cross-chain, multi-asset seamless transfer and intelligent routing, significantly improving capital turnover efficiency. Additionally, by providing a standardized developer toolchain and a frictionless wallet integration experience, the solution substantially lowers both development barriers and end-user adoption costs — forming a payment closed-loop that balances financial-grade security with best-in-class usability.
The Agent Registry layer issues on-chain identities to each agent based on the DID (Decentralized Identifier) standard and ERC-8004, ensuring every instance of inter-agent collaboration is traceable and verifiable. The Root Infrastructure layer serves as the architectural foundation, leveraging Jovay Layer2 to achieve sub-120-millisecond transaction confirmation in support of AI micropayments, and combining ZKVM technology to enable off-chain computation with on-chain verification — resolving the computational trust problem inherent in the AI economy. As Yan Ying put it, "Root Infrastructure uses blockchain and privacy-preserving computation to provide agents with a tamper-proof contract execution environment. Even two agents with no prior relationship can establish trust through code and transact with confidence."
AI is currently progressing from the Chat phase through the Action phase and into the era of the agent economy. Yan Ying argued that the defining transformation of this third phase lies not in AI becoming more intelligent, but in AI beginning to hold assets and exercise transactional authority. She noted that over the past decade-plus, Ant Digital Technologies has accumulated deep engineering expertise across financial-grade security, privacy computing, blockchain, and compliance systems — and that the 4R Architecture represents a ground-up research and development effort built upon that foundation.
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Ant Digital Technologies CTO: The Agent Economy's Four Fault Lines Demand a Ground-Up Infrastructure Redesign
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia, April 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Elitery Malaysia, AWS's edtech partner, celebrated the successful conclusion of the CendekiAwan Malaysia program, marking a significant milestone in Malaysia's journey toward developing a future-ready digital workforce. The initiative reached its milestone conclusion with a high-energy Closing Event, highlighting the remarkable achievements of students and universities in mastering generative AI technologies.
Since its launch in November 2025, CendekiAwan Malaysia has reached a total of more than 13,000 student participants across six partner universities, namely Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP), Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN), Universiti Malaya (UM), and Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT). As an ongoing initiative through the end of 2026, the program continues to expand its reach, bridging the gap between academic theory and industry demand by equipping students with the essential tools to experiment, build, and innovate with cutting-edge cloud technology. A key highlight of the journey was the integration of PartyRock, AWS's no code, browser based service, which empowered students to build 227 functional, innovative applications using natural language prompts. These submissions showcase the power of generative AI to solve problems in sectors like digital health and smart education, proving that generative AI is a powerful tool for students of all academic backgrounds.
The initiative culminated in a milestone Closing Event on April 20, 2026, which celebrated the program's collective success. Beyond recognizing the transformative role of partner universities, the ceremony showcased the most impactful Generative AI applications built using AWS PartyRock. Top honors were awarded to five exceptional student innovators who demonstrated the power of AI to solve critical challenges:
- Siti Aisyah Binti Abdul Azis (UiTM) in GovTech & Social Impact with CareerAdvisor;
- Amir Fahmi Bin Jasni (UniMAP) in Smart Education with ThinkPath;
- Nik Hannan Qistina Binti Zulkifli (UiTM) in Financial Inclusion & SME Empowerment with CashSmart Campus;
- Muhammad Fadlan Bin Mairuzsazali (UniMAP) in Digital Health with Isihat+; and
- Ang Ke Sin (UTHM) in Sustainable Environment & Climate with KitarSemula AI.
Among the featured innovations, Isihat+ stood out for empowering users to optimize daily routines through precise physiological tracking and health metric analytics. Meanwhile, CashSmart Campus redefined personal finance for the academic community, offering students a streamlined tool to track expenses and gain actionable insights for long-term financial literacy. This massive achievement ensures that every participant is career-ready, armed with industry-validated skills to thrive in today's competitive digital economy.
Hussein Mohd Ali, Country Manager, AWS Malaysia, emphasized the transformative power of early experimentation with generative AI. "Building a culture of experimentation starts at the earliest ages. When we empower students with tools like PartyRock and AWS generative AI technologies, we're not just teaching them skills — we're enabling them to curate the future they want to see. The applications created through CendekiAwan Malaysia demonstrate what's possible when young innovators are given the freedom to experiment, fail, learn, and ultimately build solutions that matter to their communities. This is how we strengthen Malaysia's digital talent pipeline — by nurturing curiosity and creativity from the ground up," said Hussein.
Kresna Adiprawira, President Director of Elitery, emphasized the importance of this collaboration in fostering local talent and regional digital transformation. "We are honored to facilitate this bridge between industry and academia. The success of CendekiAwan Malaysia is more than just statistics; it represents the immense potential of Malaysia's next generation of digital leaders. By providing the right platform, we are empowering these students to catalyze digital transformation across the entire region. The 227 innovative applications developed through this program are a powerful reminder that when student creativity is matched with industry-leading tools, it translates directly into real-world solutions", said Kresna.
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CendekiAwan Malaysia Program Empowers Thousands of Malaysian Students to Lead the Generative AI Revolution
