Alibaba closes social science institute that Jack Ma once hoped would exist for 300 years
- The closure of Luohan Academy, with the grand mission of helping solve ‘pressing economic and social challenges’, came as part of a sweeping restructuring at Alibaba
- The academy has been functioning as an academic institute rather than a revenue-generating business entity, according to insiders
The unannounced closure of Luohan Academy, an open research institute with the grand mission of helping solve “some of the world’s most pressing economic and social challenges”, came as part of a sweeping restructuring at Alibaba, the Hangzhou-based e-commerce giant that owns the South China Morning Post.
At the same time, parts of the academy’s operations have remained within Alibaba, including the environmental, social and governance research team, according to people familiar with the matter.
Alibaba is breaking up its sprawling business empire into six major groups; Taobao and Tmall, cloud, local services, international commerce, entertainment and Cainiao, as well as a number of smaller business units. Cainiao, the smart logistics network, has filed an initial public offering application in Hong Kong to raise at least US$1 billion.
As part of the restructuring, resources and people are being deployed to frontline businesses.