Manulife Hong Kong and Alibaba Cloud have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to co-develop AI applications for the insurance and financial services sector, with Manulife projecting more than US$1 billion in enterprise AI value by 2027.

Joint AI hub to incubate next-generation applications

Under the MoU, the two companies will explore establishing a joint AI hub to develop insurance-specific AI use cases, with an initial focus on fraud detection and service personalisation across digital customer journeys. The framework also covers go-to-market collaboration and evaluation of emerging technologies, subject to regulatory approval.

The partnership builds on an existing technology relationship between the two companies in Hong Kong and Macau, where Manulife has already deployed AI across customer engagement, data-driven distribution support, and intelligent operations automation.

Regional significance for APAC financial services

Alibaba Cloud brings its Qwen family of large language and multimodal AI models to the collaboration, alongside its full-stack cloud infrastructure spanning IaaS, PaaS, and MaaS. Manulife serves over 2.6 million customers in Hong Kong and Macau and operates across 25 markets globally with over 37 million customers, giving the AI hub potential reach well beyond Hong Kong.

“Through the establishment of a joint AI hub, we are creating a structured platform to co-develop innovative AI solutions that can transform both customer experiences and business processes,” said Dr. Hongjuan Liu, Chief AI and Data Officer, Manulife Hong Kong and Macau.

The announcement positions Hong Kong as a focal point for AI innovation in financial services across the region, with both parties framing the collaboration as a model for responsible AI adoption governed by security, privacy, and regulatory compliance principles.