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Alibaba’s AI development could be stop-and-go, as outgoing CEO highlights regulatory restraint in speech

  • AI regulation is as important as developing the technology, said Alibaba’s outgoing CEO Daniel Zhang, who will continue to lead its cloud operations
  • The comments align with Beijing’s goal of taming the tech’s erratic nature while keeping pace in the global AI race

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Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang, who also directly heads the company’s cloud business, speaking at the Nishan Dialogue on Digital Civilisation, organised by the World Internet Conference, in Qufu, Shandong province, on June 26, 2023. Photo: SCMP / Ben Jiang
Ben Jiangin Qufu, China
Alibaba Group Holding’s development of artificial intelligence (AI) could be in for a bumpy ride, as the company’s outgoing chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang Yong said on Monday that the cloud business group will be hitting the accelerator and also pumping the brakes when appropriate, aligning with Beijing’s goal of trying to simultaneously tame and harness the technology.
Zhang, who is set to leave his roles at the e-commerce giant on September 10 to focus on leading Alibaba Cloud, told a government-backed forum that regulating AI is as important to the industry as developing the technology.

“Hitting the accelerator while also … hitting the brakes for security are equally important,” Zhang said at the Nishan Dialogue on Digital Civilisation in Qufu, a city in eastern Shandong province, the birthplace of the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius. This strategy requires a “cooperative effort from the whole society to pre-empt any possible problems brought upon by the accelerated development of AI technologies”, he added.

The event was organised by the World Internet Conference (WIC), a government-backed annual forum started in China in 2014 to promote Beijing’s governance model for cyberspace. In 2021, the WIC expanded its membership to become an international organisation, although most of its funding still comes from the Chinese government.

China’s top cyberspace regulator, Zhuang Rongwen, said at the same event that AI in China must be “controllable and reliable”.

Alibaba Cloud is the leading business segment in developing and commercialising AI for the tech giant. It is the largest cloud computing business in China, but maintaining good business relationships with state-owned enterprises and government clients requires maintaining goodwill with Beijing.

The subsidiary is one of six new business groups under a corporate restructuring this year that will see each group run independently and able to seek outside funding. Alibaba Cloud is currently in the process of seeking an initial public offering, to be concluded in the next 12 months, according to the company.

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