Alibaba will invest $15 billion over the next several years in its new research initiative called Alibaba DAMO Academy to attract world-class talent, build partnerships and open research laboratories in seven cities around the globe. Its research areas will cover data intelligence, the Internet of things, quantum computing and human-machine interaction.
Within those areas, it will focus on real-world applications like machine learning, network security, visual computing and natural language processing (NLP), according to a company statement.Alibaba will invest $15 billion over the next several years in its new research initiative called Alibaba DAMO Academy to attract world-class talent, build partnerships and open research laboratories in seven cities around the globe. Its research areas will cover data intelligence, the Internet of things, quantum computing and human-machine interaction.#
DAMO stands for ‘discovery, adventure, momentum and outlook’. With an aim to solve problems with ‘fun and profit’, the academy will be led by Alibaba Group chief technology officer Jeff Zhang. It will start by opening labs in seven cities: Beijing and Hangzhou in China; San Mateo and Bellevue in the United States; Moscow in Russia; Tel Aviv in Israel; and Singapore.
“Without strong and abundant financial resources, it’s hard to establish a research institute,” Ma said. At this point in the group’s development, he said, it becomes important to have a research academy to tackle and solve broader issues facing people, economies and broader society.
The academy will learn from the research labs established by IBM, Microsoft and others, but will decide its own route for contribution to society. “DAMO will go beyond IBM and Intel and Microsoft, because it’s born in the 21st century and will take the late-mover advantage,” added Ma. (DS)
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