BEIJING - Bank of China (BOC), one of the country's big four State-owned lenders, and Tencent have established a joint financial technology laboratory, said the lender in a statement on Thursday.

The lab will work on cloud computing, big data, blockchain and artificial intelligence to promote financial innovation such as finance in the cloud.

"After months of work, the two sides have made breakthroughs in the fields of cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence applications, and set up a unified platform of financial big data," said the statement.

The two companies will set up a cloud platform of financial technology, improve risk control and raise efficiency.

China's service sector is expected to play a bigger role in powering the economy as increasingly affluent Chinese consumers demand more diverse and better-quality services.