Ant International and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have announced a collaboration over the next five years to conduct research to advance digital trust leveraging both Ant International’s industry experience and NTU Singapore’s research expertise on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs).

Under the MRCA, Ant International will collaborate with NTU Singapore’s Digital Trust Centre to advance the development of PETs in Singapore and the region. These technologies aim to help businesses unlock greater value from their data and create more use cases. Additionally, the development of PETs for Artificial Intelligence will enhance digital trust and make AI more reliable.

This will be achieved by minimising the risk of data leaks, allowing businesses to share data and gain valuable insights without disclosing confidential information.

Ant International will commit to contribute up to S$20m over the next five years to support research on PETs

Under this MRCA, Ant International will contribute a total funding amount of S$5m for the five-year partnership until July 2029.

During the collaboration, which will be based in NTU Singapore, researchers will have access to real-life use cases from Ant International for their projects, which will focus on advancing industry tools and processes for machine learning and secure insights sharing between businesses.

This will be achieved through the use of advanced privacy-enhancing technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs and federated learning.

Jerry Yin, Chief Technology Officer of Ant International, said: “Ant International is pleased to expand our collaboration with NTU, through this longer-term partnership. As a global digital payment and financial technology provider, data privacy is a core part of our business as we aim to provide merchants with secure, reliable and seamless solutions. By leveraging NTU’s academic expertise and Ant International’s industry experience, we look forward to advancing the development of privacy-enhancing technologies with new innovations that address real business needs.”