Chinese tech companies are continuing to grow at a fast rate. Apps such as AliPay and WeChat have already covered most parts of the country, and are expanding overseas. Chinese firms are also trying to join forces to become more technologically advanced and gain wider customer bases.

 Senipay is a start-up specializing in facial recognition technology. Established a year ago, the company quickly gained a local market with its check-in and payment machines designed for hotels.

There are currently 100 hotels using its products to identify customers and make payment, cutting the time needed for hotels to verify customers' identities by checking ID cards.

To add data access to Alipay and Zhima Credit, Senipay joined Ant Financial's open platform half a year ago. The platform is called Ant-Open. The company is able to connect Ant Financial's large user base and use it to authorize payment of hotel bills.

Sheng Quanliang, General Manager of Senipay, said people, especially China's millennial generation, want to try out advanced technology. They want to do everything on their smart phones, so that’s why start-ups like Senipay look to work with tech giants like Tencent and Alibaba, so that they can roll out new products even faster. Both Senipay and Ant-financial make a small percentage from each transaction.

Ant Financial is not the only tech firm in China allying itself with others to expand services. Tencent began opening its platforms to outside developers in the early 2010s, and offers data services and analysis to companies using its QQ and official WeChat accounts.

Baidu has a used car data base that now partners with China's largest online second-hand car dealers, including Guazi, Renrenche.com and Youxin.

Companies hope this sharing of technology will help them expand their services in new ways. Western tech giants, such as Google and Tesla, are already sharing technology in a similar way, focusing on developing fields such as artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles.