CAI Chairman Cai Wensheng Says Data Will Become Core Resource
Angel investor and CAI Holdings Chairman Cai Wensheng stated at the "AI×New Finance" event in Hong Kong that artificial intelligence changes productivity, while Web3 is closer to changing production relationships. If there is only an increase in efficiency without changes in finance and production relationships, the new technological cycle will still be missing a link.
He predicts that human society is transitioning from an industrial society and information society to a data society, where the most valuable resource in the future will be data. The sequence for enterprises is: first use artificial intelligence to improve existing business and organizational efficiency, then discuss new business models; as Web3 develops, data will become easier to circulate and gradually break through platform and regional boundaries.
His identity as a spokesperson can be verified. Cai Wensheng is the actual controller of Longling Capital and has served as a non-executive director and chairman of Hong Kong-listed CAI Corp (0080.HK) since September 5, 2025. CAI in his statement represents Capital plus Artificial Intelligence, focusing on investments in AI and Web3 listed and unlisted equity. He is also an unofficial member of the Hong Kong SAR government's task force promoting Web3 development, serving a two-year term starting July 1, 2025, and is a practice professor in the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
His Hong Kong operations have formed an asset portfolio: approximately HKD 650 million was used to purchase the 25th-floor commercial building, renamed CAI Tower, as an incubation space for AI and Web3, with some floors rent-free in exchange for priority project viewing rights; he also acquired the China New Economy Fund, renamed CAI Holdings, and restructured China Financial Leasing into LONG Investment Group, injecting early projects into CAI Holdings. In May 2026, Longling subscribed to 430 million shares of CAI Holdings at a cost of approximately HKD 141.9 million, with the net proceeds primarily used for investments in AI and Web3. The group also increased its holdings in unlisted digital asset projects in the first half of the year and mentioned the governance token of the Web3 application Firefly.
He has repeated the same judgment in earlier public occasions: focusing solely on cryptocurrencies will narrow the view of Web3; AI and Web3 can mutually achieve success. At the Hong Kong FinTech Week, he stated that the market value of native cryptocurrencies still has multiple growth potential and mentioned that CAI Tower is fully occupied. The founder of Meitu, he sold 265.com to Google, and was an early investor in 58.com, 4399, Baofeng Video, and OKX's predecessor, marking his transition from traffic entry to data and token distribution rights.
In market mechanisms, buyers aim to transform listed company shells and physical buildings into fundraising entry points for AI and Web3, while sellers are Hong Kong's listed shells, commercial buildings, and early projects. Funding events are driven by narratives following Hong Kong's digital asset center policies and the HKD 10 billion innovation and technology industry guidance fund, flowing from personal wealth and Longling accounts into incubation buildings, licensed trading-related targets, and token projects. Beneficiaries are projects that can tell both efficiency and token distribution stories, while those under pressure are traditional software companies that only have models without data ownership and can only work for platforms.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Cai Wensheng has sold entry points twice before. The first was selling 265.com to Google, converting a Chinese URL navigation site into cash; the second was Meitu turning a photo editing tool into a Hong Kong stock, making user faces and filters into a listed company. Now, he writes CAI as Capital plus AI, which essentially represents a third entry point: whoever controls data and token distribution will collect the next round of taxes. He does not refer to artificial intelligence as a new application but as productivity; he does not refer to Web3 as coins but as production relationships. This is a layered message for investors to LPs: first buy cost reduction, then buy ownership rewriting.
Capital mobilization follows Hong Kong rules. HKD 650 million was spent on buying buildings to create physical communities, HKD 70.93 million was used to acquire control of 0080.HK for a listing channel, and HKD 46.08 million was spent on another shell for asset management, allowing Longling to subscribe to 430 million shares at HKD 0.33, injecting funds back into the listed company from private accounts. Licensed virtual asset platforms like EXIO are included in the investment portfolio to provide a licensed interface for "data circulation" rather than just speaking in incubators. His membership in the Hong Kong task force connects personal narratives to official digital asset center policies, thus obtaining policy premiums for buildings and shells.
Benchmarking against the SoftBank Vision Fund's thematic packaging and a16z's integration of crypto and AI into the same LP letter, the difference is that Cai uses Hong Kong stock shells and self-owned properties rather than dollar fund subscriptions. The industry phase is a thematic migration: after the end of the Web2 traffic dividend, remaining cash is moved to Hong Kong, rebranded as AI plus Web3. This is not a year of technological breakthroughs, but a year of channel reconstruction.
Structural changes indicate a reconstruction of the industrial chain. If data truly becomes a core resource, value will shift from model training parties to data holders who can assert rights, trade, and settle cross-border. The mechanism is: AI increases the usage frequency of the same data, while Web3 attempts to write usage frequency into divisible rights; without the latter layer, the rent from efficiency improvements remains with clouds and super applications. The link he aims to supplement is to transfer rent from platforms to tradable data rights.
ABAB News · Law of Cognition
- If the efficiency revolution does not change distribution, rent will still belong to old platforms.
- Before data becomes an asset, it must first become a tradable right.
- What is often missing in the new cycle is not technology, but who has the right to charge.