All in your hand: Chinese internet giant Tencent announces global expansion plans for palm scan technology

SHENZHEN: Paying with your palm may soon become the norm for tech users in Southeast Asia as Chinese internet giant Tencent on Thursday (Sep 5) announced expansion plans and unveiled its latest tech offerings, which included a new suite of artificial intelligence (AI) and model training products.
This marks the first time Tencent Cloud International, a service operated by Tencent, is bringing its palm scan technology along with other AI products to the global market, with Southeast Asia being among the initial regions to benefit.
The expansion plans were announced at the ongoing Global Digital Ecosystem Summit (GDES), held in southern Shenzhen city from September 5 to 6 where Tencent’s honchos showcased its latest technological advancements and new Cloud and Artificial Intelligence (AI) product offerings.
Top of the showcases include Tencent’s palm verification technology, which utilises “non-contact recognition of both surface-level palm prints and hand veins”. It has been available in China since 2023 and is used to make payments and office access, and borrowing portable chargers.
Mr Coby Chiu, Vice-President of Tencent and Chief Operating Officer of the Cloud and Smart Industries Group, explained why Southeast Asia, where growth of its digital economy is expected to grow to $1 trillion by 2030, will be the first market to experience palm verification technology.
In an exclusive interview with CNA held on the sidelines of the GDES, he said Southeast Asia “is the most important market” for Tencent Cloud.
“First, it’s the huge population,” Mr Chiu explained, noting that Southeast Asia has a combined total of over 695 million people, according to the latest United Nations estimates.
He elaborated that many of Tencent’s products require a large user base: “A larger population will bring about greater demand in online services and audio-video streaming.”
While palm scans may seem straightforward, there are actually three distinct ways our hands can provide data—palm veins, prints, and geometry—according to Associate Professor Terence Sim, who also serves as the Vice Dean of NUS Office of Admissions. 
Associate Professor Wai Kin Kong from Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) College of Computing and Data Science explained that the recognition process involves capturing a palm image with a camera.
The central part of the palm, known as the region of interest, is then inputted into a deep neural network to extract palm features that correspond to the identity of the person.
“These features are stored and used to identify or verify individuals when their palm is scanned again in the future,” said Dr Kong, who previously created one of the earliest palm scan payment technologies in 2003 while he was still a student at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Although facial recognition technology is already widely used worldwide, developing touchless palm technology presents new and complex challenges. However, experts suggest that it offers higher security and privacy.
Dr Sim explained that veins, or “vascular biometrics” in technical terms, are highly accurate and difficult to spoof. “It can distinguish between identical twins, which would fool most facial recognition systems,” he said.
He added that acquiring a palm vein image is also contactless, making it “more hygienic compared to contact-based biometrics like fingerprints.” He noted that “contactless means you don’t have to clean the surface as often.”
Dr Kong mentioned that this technology helps reduce the risk of identity theft from online presence. “In general, it is hard to get a clear palm image without user cooperation. Except for some celebrities, most people do not have palm images online.”
However, Dr Sim cautioned that one downside of scanning vein information is that “it reveals medical conditions, such as oxygenation levels, pregnancy, and stress levels”.
Palm scans can be utilised for payments, attendance tracking, and health records management. However, some of these applications may be more challenging to implement than others.
In various international markets, local laws and regulations concerning data privacy and security must be considered. 
In response, Tencent Cloud stated that they will adhere to the domestic laws and regulations of each host country. “We don’t have any data transfer back to our data centres, because we have built local data centres and servers in their respective regions,” said Mr Eric Li, Director of AI Global Commercialisation, Tencent Cloud.
In a bid to better serve the growing ecosystem of global partners and clients, Tencent Cloud has also established a global network of nine technical support centres across Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, the USA, and Germany, all of which will be providing round-the-clock technical service and support.
Additionally, Mr Li highlighted that the team is currently working to overcome technical challenges related to palm scan technology. These challenges include ensuring functionality in varying temperatures, accommodating special cases such as individuals with weak veins, and preventing accidental scans from people who might be waving nearby. 
“We will need to tackle those different technological challenges; that is our focus,” Mr Li added.
According to Tencent, with the launch of these AI-powered offerings, Tencent Cloud’s international business is set for continued growth beyond the more than 10,000 enterprises in 80 countries and regions. 
One company in Indonesia is already adopting the technology. Telkomsel, Indonesia’s largest mobile internet provider, adopted Tencent Cloud’s Palm Verification Ecosystem Plan, supporting diverse applications from payment systems to security access management.
In 2020, Amazon launched a biometric payment system using palm recognition technology, which has since been adopted by more than 200 establishments both within and outside the company. 
The technology has also been utilised by researchers in Singapore.
Unmanned convenience store concepts were unveiled to the public in 2019, including on campus at the National University of Singapore, using palm scanners for store entry as well as to track grocery items. 
Tencent did not provide an exact timeline on its regional expansion, saying it would take a careful, step-by-step approach.
“We never set any grand goals,” Mr Chiu explained, noting that the team focuses on the potential value of their products rather than setting rigid targets.
He used games as an example, saying, “It might get popular in places very different from what we imagined.”
This approach also allows for better control of investment. “We promise an initially profitable investment and will expand according to the growth of the businesses in the target market.”
“I will try my best to minimise the initial investment so that I can reduce the cost of trial and error,” Mr Chiu added.
Tencent has been under increasing pressure to defend its title as China’s top tech company amid intensifying competition. 
The Chinese tech giant says it has been working to introduce more advanced technology tools using AI documentation and facial recognition, to serve sectors such as banking, insurance and Internet services, where security and identification are crucial. 
In an age where identity frauds are becoming more prevalent, a system developed by Tencent Cloud known as the electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) uses AI technology to remotely verify user identities automatically.
The aim is also to simplify tedious identification processes, Tencent said. 
Also debuting at this week’s tech conference was a “digital human” – an AI-programmed virtual being able to operate in multiple languages which can also be used in recorded events like livestreaming, news reading, interpretation and even customer services.
And companies have already signed up.  
Singaporean educational platform, the S.M.A.R.T Entrepreneurship Club, which runs digital entrepreneurship skills courses, told CNA that it was keen to trial Tencent’s “digital human” tool in client-networking sessions involving English and Chinese speakers. 
The group’s secretary-general Mr Andrew Chin, told CNA that the “digital human” would enable him to record himself easily. “I’m not a professional… but with the digital human, I just have to record (myself) once for five minutes and it becomes video.”