Alibaba sets up research body to benefit enterprises around world
Domestic e-commerce giant Alibaba announced that it is setting up a research organization called Damo Academy will “serve at least 2 billion people in the world and create profitability opportunities enterprises,” Alibaba Chairman and founder Jack Ma Yun said on Wednesday. Ma made the announcement at the opening of the 2017 Conference, Alibaba’s annual cloud computing sumou, capital of East China’s Zhejiang Province. As a part of Damo Academy, Alibaba will set up research laboratories and overseas. Alibaba’s CTO Zhang Jianfeng, also the head of Damo Academy, said that Alibaba has already founded laboratories in countries like Israel and Russia.
“Different countries have different research advantages. For example, the US has a lot of talent in the big data sector. We will establish laboratories based on those advantages,” he told the Global Times on Wednesday.
He also noted that the research projects under Damo Academy will all be used to solve problems in Alibaba’s businesses.
“We are problem-oriented instead of just studying for academic purposes,” he noted.
Ma also noted that Damo Academy should not entirely rely on capital support from Alibaba. “We will invest up to 100 billion yuan ($15.19 billion) in the scientific projects under Damo in the next three years, but over the long term it should be self-sufficient,” he noted.
Alibaba said that the first batch of research projects under Damo will include Internet safety, nextgeneration human-computer interaction, chip technology and sensor technology.