Alibaba’s cloud unit now serves 80% of Chinese tech companies and half of country’s AI language model firms, group chairman Joe Tsai says

Alibaba Cloud aims to turn AI into a huge productivity tool, ‘especially for small and medium-sized enterprises’, Tsai said at the Apsara Conference
He also pointed out that Alibaba is the world’s first large-scale internet company to move all of its businesses to the cloud

Alibaba

Ann Caoin Shanghai

Published: 8:15pm, 31 Oct 2023

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Alibaba Group Holding’s cloud computing unit now forms an integral part of many Chinese technology firms’ operations and the country’s artificial intelligence (AI) development efforts, according to company co-founder Joe Tsai in his first public speech since he took over as chairman of the e-commerce giant last month.

“Currently, 80 per cent of China’s technology companies and half of [AI] large [language] model companies run on Alibaba Cloud,” Tsai said on Tuesday at the opening of the annual Apsara Conference in Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province. The three-day tech event concludes on November 2.

“We aim to be the most open cloud in the era of AI,” he said. “We hope that through this cloud [platform], it will become easier and affordable for everyone to develop and use AI.”

Tsai indicated that it was the goal of Alibaba Cloud, which remains mainland China’s leading cloud infrastructure services provider, to turn AI into a huge productivity tool, “especially for small and medium-sized enterprises”.

Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology unit of Alibaba Group Holding, has been a major sponsor of the Olympic Games since 2017. Its technology has helped drive efficiencies in the organisation of major sporting events under the International Olympic Committee. Photo: Shutterstock

Cloud computing technology enables companies to distribute over the internet a range of software and other digital resources as an on-demand service, just like electricity from a power grid. These resources are stored and managed inside data centres.

Founded in 2009, Alibaba’s cloud services unit aimed “to make computing a public service like water and electricity” from the first line of code that it developed, Tsai said. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

The Alibaba chairman’s remarks at the Apsara conference reflect the tech conglomerate’s business priorities, as it undertakes a sweeping corporate restructuring, grapples with growing competition and a shifting internet landscape.

The company’s digital transformation is bolstering its latest cloud and AI initiatives. Tsai pointed out that Alibaba is the world’s first large-scale internet company to move all of its businesses to the cloud.

Alibaba Cloud chief technology officer Zhou Jingren presents Tongyi Qianwen 2.0, the company’s latest artificial intelligence large language model, at the opening of the Apsara Conference in Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province, on October 31, 2023. Photo: Handout

At the Apsara conference, Alibaba Cloud also launched the latest iteration of its AI large language model (LLM), Tongyi Qianwen 2.0, to train AI applications such as chatbots.

The company described Tongyi Qianwen 2.0 as a generic LLM with “a few hundreds of billions of parameters” – a benchmark to measure an AI model’s power – that enables it to “successfully exceed some leading LLMs in benchmarks across domains ranging from language understanding and arithmetic problem solving to question-answering”.

LLMs are deep-learning AI algorithms that can recognise, summarise, translate, predict and generate content using very large data sets.

“Large language models hold immense potential to revolutionise industries,” Alibaba Cloud chief technology officer Zhou Jingren said.

Alibaba opens Tongyi Qianwen model to public as new CEO embraces AI

“We’re committed to using cutting-edge technologies, including generative AI, to help our customers capture the growth momentum forward,” Zhou said. “To help businesses better reap the benefits of generative AI in a cost-effective way, we are launching a more powerful foundation model, as well as industry-specific models to tackle domain-specific challenges.”

Tongyi Qianwen 2.0 is now accessible to the public via Alibaba Cloud’s website and mobile applications, and available for developers through application programming interfaces.

To cater to burgeoning demand for generative AI, Alibaba Cloud introduced at the conference its GenAI Service Platform, an all-in-one AI model-building platform designed to make it easier for companies in various industries to develop enterprise-specific AI models and applications, according to the company.

New Alibaba CEO sharpens focus on AI as he takes over the reins

To support the broader AI community, Alibaba Cloud has pledged to contribute more to open-source resources, including ModelScope – a so-called model-as-a-service platform launched by the unit at the same conference last year. It features ready-to-use AI models contributed by leading AI institutions, covering areas from computer vision to natural language processing.

Alibaba Cloud’s start-up catalyst programme was also launched at the conference. It offers cloud computing resources, including cloud credit support of up to US$120,000, free online learning memberships and networking opportunities to promising global start-ups.