Every fortnight we compile a list of important news updates and events covering the Chinese FINTECH, MFGTECH, CLNTECH, and AGRTECH sectors.

For a downloadable copy of China’s Issue #38

FINTECH

Digital RMB is now available on Alipay
Alipay has become the seventh commercial bank to participate in the digital RMB testing pilot. Digital RMB function is available for some some Alipay users. At the same time, the six major state-owned banks have added three sub-wallets, which are Ele me, Hema, and Tmall, under the digital RMB wallet, indicating that the digital RMB has been officially available on Alipay channel.
Linda Chen is Senior Business Development Manager at Alipay

Guangdong supports Shenzhen in establishing a fintech innovation platform
The Guangdong government has actively promoted the construction of smart banks and promoted new business forms and models such as smart teller machines and unmanned outlets.

Sensedeal AI completed A+ round of financing of 10 million CNY
Sensedeal AI, financial cognitive computing engine, has raised more than $10 million in Round A+ funding. This round of financing was led by Innovation Works and followed by the SME Development Fund.
Dianming Hu is the Founder at SenseDeal AI

Clustar completed an A+ round of strategic financing of $11 million
Clustar, A provider of private computing full-stack technology and infrastructure, has completed an A+ round of strategic financing of $11 million. The investment was led by Huatai Innovation and followed by China Merchants International. Clustar has set up several benchmarking cases in the financial industry.

JD Cloud Computing sets up a new digital economy company
JD Smart City Digital Economy Co., Ltd. was established with a registered capital of 10 million CNY. The company’s business scope includes information system integration services, data processing services, application software development, Internet of Things technology services, incubators, etc. The company is wholly owned by JD Cloud Computing Co Ltd.
Lei Xu is the CEO of JD Retail

Huawei Cloud cooperates with CotteYolan
Huawei Cloud and Cotte Yolan cooperate to jointly create solutions for C2M industrial Internet platform. They will also jointly expand the smart manufacturing market and the big enterprise cloud service market, providing solutions for government customers and big enterprise customers.
Jianlong Chang is the Principal Researcher at Huawei Cloud

Xingyi Cloud completed a pre-A round of financing of 10 million CNY
Xingyi Cloud, an ERP service provider based on cloud native architecture, completed a pre-A round of financing of 10 million CNY. The investor is Changhe Capital, and the proceeds will be used for product research and development.

Two Internet Banks, WeBank and Mybank exceeded 300 billion CNY in assets
The assets of the two Internet banks, WeBank and MYbank, have maintained rapid growth, with the assets of both exceeding 300 billion CNY. The ability of Internet banking to serve the real economy has been greatly enhanced.
Huiya Yao is the Head of FinTech Innovation at Webank

Tencent’s first-quarter revenue from fintech-related businesses reaches 9 billion CNY
Tencent’s online advertising business generated 21.8 billion CNY in revenue in the first quarter of 2021, up 23% year on year. Social and other advertising revenue was 18.5 billion CNY, up 27% year on year. Fintech and enterprise services revenue was 9 billion CNY, up 47% year on year.
Patrick Jiang is the Senior Strategy Manager at Tencent

The total revenue of Huize in the first quarter reaches 730 million CNY
The total revenue of insurance e-commerce company Huize in the first quarter was 730 million CNY, up 195.5% year on year. Net profit was 38.748 million CNY, up 74.5% year on year. The total premium was 1.39 billion CNY, up 133.1% year on year.
Kang Liu is the Strategy Director at Huize

Baidu Smart Cloud reported revenue of 2.8 billion CNY in the first quarter
Baidu Smart Cloud achieved revenue of 2.8 billion CNY in the first quarter of 2021, up 55 percent year-on-year, with the growth mainly benefiting from customers in Internet/media, financial services, intelligent transportation and other industries. Baidu expects the growth rate of Baidu Smart Cloud to accelerate further.
Grace Zhang is the Director of Innovation at Baidu

Suning has launched a digital RMB payment service
Suning has launched a digital RMB payment service, which is still in trial operation. Consumers can buy products on the Suning App and in offline stores in digital CNY in pilot cities. Suning’s opening of digital RMB payment service means that digital RMB has been connected with the payment interface of e-commerce platform.
Raymond Wu is the Senior Vice President at Suning

Ant Chain Launches the First International Standard for Blockchain Privacy Protection
The standard jointly initiated by Ant Chain and China Communications Institute has been successfully approved, becoming the world’s first universal international data privacy protection standard on blockchain. This marks a high level of recognition from the international community for the privacy protection technology of Chinese technology companies in the blockchain field.
Ming Gu is the Senior Director at Ant Group

AGRTECH

Alibaba Group plans to help villages become rich through smart agriculture
Alibaba Group Held “2021 Alibaba Village Getting Rich Conference”. Alibaba will invest special funds to increase investment in smart agricultural technology research. In the next three years, it will help trace the origin of 300 county landmark products and improve the brand degree and digital ability.
Chris Tung is the Chief Marketing Officer at Alibaba Group

Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Xinhuanet jointly build “Yunnan Digital Agriculture Service Platform“
This platform will provide strong data resource support and information technology guarantee for the development of Yunnan Plateau characteristic agriculture. A digital agricultural and rural science and technology innovation team will also be established to conduct research on dynamic monitoring and early warning of crop growth.

Guannong digital agricultural service platform was launched
Through the technologies of Internet of Things, cloud computing, big data and mobile Internet, Guannong Digital Agriculture Co., Ltd. has built the Little Caw Digital Agriculture Service Platform. Through the online and offline integrated agricultural service system, the cooperation between farmers and processing enterprises has been effectively promoted.