Alibaba transfers autonomous driving team at DAMO Academy to logistics arm in latest restructuring move
- DAMO Academy, Alibaba’s in-house research initiative, will no longer retain its autonomous driving business unit, a spokeswoman confirmed
- The technology has been deployed at universities, residential communities and parks across Chinese cities to solve the ‘last mile’ logistics problem
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding has transferred its autonomous driving research and development (R&D) team under DAMO Academy to the firm’s Cainiao logistics arm, the latest move in a corporate restructuring announced earlier this year.
However, the transfer will only involve some of the employees at the self-driving lab, with the rest being laid off or internally transferred, according to a report by Chinese media Jiemian, citing anonymous sources.
DAMO Academy, Alibaba’s in-house research initiative, will no longer retain its autonomous driving business unit, according to a report by Shanghai Securities News, citing sources close to DAMO and Cainiao. A spokeswoman at Alibaba Cloud confirmed the transfer but did not respond to a request for information about the lay-offs. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Alibaba will also set up corporate entities for other operations using a “1+6+N” structure, with 1 referring to the group, 6 referring to the number of business units, and N referring to future business units, according to a letter to employees. The fate of DAMO remains uncertain.