Alibaba sets up first joint research institute outside China with Singapore’s NTU to delve into AI
Alibaba has pledged to spend more than $15 billion on research and development over three years.
China’s Alibaba Group set up its first overseas joint research institute in Singapore, partnering with Nanyang Technological University to develop artificial intelligence for use in tackling issues from ageing societies to urban transport.
The Alibaba-NTU Singapore Joint Research Institute will start with a pool of 50 researchers from both organisations, according to a joint statement. The institute will combine NTU’s human-centred AI technology with Alibaba’s research on natural language processing, machine learning, cloud computing and more, for AI solutions that helps improve the city’s efficiency and people’s lives.
“Using AI technologies, we can address fundamental societal challenges such as ageing population which is a huge issue for cities with a rapidly ageing population such as Singapore,” Professor Subra Suresh, President of NTU, said in the statement.
China’s tech companies are investing in artificial intelligence research as part of a national strategy to make the country an innovation centre for the technology by 2030.
Students and academics from NTU will have the opportunity of an exchange with Alibaba as they work on the AI research and vice versa. The AI solutions developed by the institute will be tested on the NTU campus before rolling out in Singapore and Southeast Asia.
NTU ranked as the top university for citations in AI-related research papers in a list compiled by Nikkei and Elsevier last year, ahead of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Singapore was ranked second in another 2017 Elsevier report regarding impact of AI research, behind Switzerland.