Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Chinese e-commerce giant is going to invest $15 billion to expand overseas research hubs for different innovative and pioneering platforms.
Alibaba Group seems to be in action with this move to compete with global leaders in Cloud technology, e-commerce, and logistics.
Eight research centres in different countries including China, Russia, USA, Israel, and Singapore would be established by the Alibaba ‘Damo’ academy. In this regard, the company is hiring 100 researchers to work on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Quantum computing and Fintech.
Officer Jeff Zhang, Alibaba’s Chief Technology said, “The Alibaba DAMO Academy will be at the forefront of developing next-generation technology that will spur the growth of Alibaba and our partners”.
The Chinese giant and its partners have made huge expansion and development in the sector of e-commerce during recent years. Now they are targeting Amazon as their immediate and direct competitor and are setting up to work on cloud and logistic firms.
Alibaba invested in Lazada.com which is a Singapore based e-commerce hub and they also partnered with Ant Financial about one year ago. The company was also bidding 1.2 billion for MoneyGram but it came under inspection from the critics.
The investment also approaches as Beijing prioritizes government’s support and funding in quantum computing, AI, and big data, urging local governments, universities, the civilian and military firms to play a better role in mounting advanced technology in regions where China trails developed and industrial countries.
The biggest factor behind the Alibaba group’s success is that they have always shown a keen interest in developing markets and emerging startups. As about a month ago, Alibaba’s high officials also visited Pakistan and shown their interest in investing in Pakistan too.
Both, Alibaba and the Pakistani consumers can benefit from upcoming projects if Alibaba invests in Pakistan. Alibaba can gain a huge market share in Pakistan if they maintain their high-quality services.
There have been continuous rumours around about Alibaba buying a stake in Telenor Bank as well. This can be a great step towards the launch of AliPay in Pakistan, and IT Ministry Anusha Rehman has expressed it several times on different occasions.
