Ant Group Co., which is financed by Jack Ma, is in talks to acquire Chinese internet platform Haodf.com in order to expand its artificial intelligence services in healthcare.
The proposed deal is considered part of Ant’s efforts to expand its presence in the online healthcare industry.
Bloomberg stated that Ant’s payment network Alipay had integrated HaoDF’s services into its healthcare area, citing unnamed sources.
Newsng understands that the Jack Ma-backed FinTech is hoping to extend its artificial intelligence services in the healthcare industry and is looking for new markets to enter.
Haodf.com has received funds from Tencent Holdings Ltd. and DCM Ventures. According to EO Data, their recent funding round in 2017 was worth approximately 6.5 billion yuan ($906 million).
Ant has been pushing into AI, investing more than 100 million yuan in the video-generating startup AIsphere in April.
It has also applied the technology to foreign exchange transactions and fraud detection.
According to the report, Ant Group has been strengthening its AI capabilities. Its efforts in the field include investing in video generation startup AI Sphere, receiving regulatory approval from China to publicly launch products powered by its large language model Bailing, developing language model-powered applications for wealth management and insurance services, and open-sourcing its AI-powered coding platform CodeFuse.
In May, it was reported that Ant Group was extending its operations outside of China to compensate for sluggish development in its home market.
Profits declined 19% in the December quarter, following a 92% drop in the preceding quarter.
We earlier reported that Samsung had acquired the UK knowledge graph company Oxford Semantic Technologies.
