Chinees e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is going to invest $15 billion to develop overseas research hubs for different innovative platforms. With this move, Alibaba Group seems to be competing with global leaders in Cloud technology, e-commerce, and logistics.
The Alibaba ‘Damo’ academy is planning to establish eight research centers in different countries including China, Russia, USA, Israel, and Singapore. The company is hiring 100 researchers to work on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Quantum computing and Fintech.
Alibaba’s Chief Technology Officer Jeff Zhang said, “The Alibaba DAMO Academy will be at the forefront of developing next-generation technology that will spur the growth of Alibaba and our partners”.
In past couple of years, the Chinese giant and its partners have made immense expansion in the ecosystem of e-commerce. Now they are considering Amazon as their immediate competitor and are planning to work on cloud and logistic firms.
One year ago, Alibaba invested in Singapore based e-commerce hub Lazada.com and also partnered with Ant Financial. They were also bidding 1.2 billion for MoneyGram but it came under scrutiny from the critics.
The investment also comes as Beijing prioritizes government’s funding in quantum computing, AI, and big data, urging regional governments, universities, the civilian and military firms to play a bigger role in developing advanced technology in areas where China trails developed countries.
Alibaba group has always shown a keen interest in developing markets and emerging startups. Recently, Alibaba’s high officials also visited Pakistan and shown their interest in investing in Pakistan. If things go according to the plan, both, Alibaba and the Pakistani consumers can benefit from each other. Customers will jump in if Alibaba maintains their high-quality services in Pakistan. There has been continuous speculation around Alibaba buying a stake in Telenor Bank as well. This can be the door to launch of AliPay in Pakistan, which our IT Ministry Anusha Rehman has expressed several times in public gatherings.
