HONOR and Alibaba Announce Strategic AI Collaboration

Two giants, one vision. HONOR and Alibaba have officially signed a landmark strategic cooperation agreement in Hangzhou, China, marking the start of a powerful alliance to accelerate AI ecosystems, AI models, and intelligent services.

From mobile office and e-commerce to entertainment and lifestyle solutions, this collaboration will co-create a seamless cloud-device integrated experience powered by HONOR’s hardware and Alibaba’s AI breakthroughs. 

With the upcoming HONOR Magic8 Series, users can expect next-level AI features and smarter everyday experiences built on this historic partnership.

Alibaba Cloud Named a Leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud Database Management Systems for Fourth Consecutive Year

Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has been named a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud Database Management Systems (“the report”) for the fourth year in a row. 

Image: Magic Quadrant for Cloud Database Management Systems

Alibaba DAMO Academy Introduces SeaLLMs, Inclusive AI Language Models for Southeast Asia

Alibaba DAMO Academy announces the launch of SeaLLMs, pioneering large language models (LLM) that come with 13-billion-parameter and 7-billion-parameter versions. The LLMs are specially designed to cater to the linguistic diversity of Southeast Asia.

Alibaba Cloud Unveils New Services to Solve Generative AI Development Issues for Global Customer

Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, today announced a series of innovative AI products and services at the 2023 Alibaba Cloud Global Summit. The comprehensive set of new products are designed to meet the burgeoning demand for Generative AI development from customers worldwide.

Selina Yuan, President of International Business at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, speaks at the Alibaba Cloud Global Summit

The extensive AI solutions from Alibaba Cloud, spanning from AI computing platforms to AI acceleration services and AI-centric applications, are designed to assist customers in creating their own Generative AI applications in a more efficient, security-focused, and cost-effective manner.

Selina Yuan, President of International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, said: "To cater for the thriving demand for generative AI, we are constantly introducing innovative products and services to tackle different pain points of our global customers. Our comprehensive AI services are designed to help customers seize the unparalleled opportunities offered by this unstoppable technology trend.”

"As part of our commitment to foster more inclusive and innovative application development for generative AI, we have been joining forces with industry leaders to further extend our capabilities for different scenarios, ” added Yuan.

Comprehensive AI Services for Generative AI Development

• To reduce AI process complexity, Alibaba Cloud introduced PAI-Lingjun Intelligent Computing Service, a comprehensive AI computing platform for high-performance computing tasks, such as foundation model training and inference. It offers large-scale deep learning and intelligent computing capabilities on Alibaba Cloud. The service also provides full-process AI engineering capabilities, including AI development, AI training, AI role management, and computing resource management. The platform, already in use in Mainland China, will be available in Singapore from early 2024, followed by more general availability across Asia throughout the year.
• To accelerate AI model training and inference, Alibaba Cloud launched Alibaba Cloud AI Acceleration Solution, which uses leading datasets and hardware accelerators to manage data-intensive applications, optimizing the utilization of computing instances to expedite AI model training and inference tasks. According to the Stanford DAWN Deep Learning Benchmark, it can speed up AI model training by 70% and inference by up to three times. The solution includes layers for cloud-native AI suite, AI job scheduling, AI data acceleration, AI computing acceleration engine, resource scheduling, and computing resources, with each layer offering specific acceleration solutions for different scenarios.
• To simplify building AI-based search service, Alibaba Cloud unveiled OpenSearch LLM-Based Conversational Search, its proprietary large-scale distributed search engine that enables intelligent search services in e-commerce, multimedia, social media, and big data queries in enterprises. Empowered by large language models, the service allows enterprises to rapidly build a dedicated conversational search system, ensuring security, accuracy, and reliability in search results. It also supports multimodal search results such as answers, URLs, and images to cater to specific business search requirements.

 

Technology Partnership to Foster Innovative Application Development

Alibaba Cloud announced a series of partnerships with global technology leaders to offer customers more advanced and security-focused cloud services, accelerating their digital transformation journey:

To promote innovative application development for enterprises, Alibaba Cloud collaborates with Red Hat to make Red Hat OpenShift, a platform for building, deploying and managing applications at scale, deployable on Alibaba Cloud. Red Hat OpenShift on Alibaba Cloud combines the industry’s leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes with Alibaba Cloud's robust hybrid infrastructure. Optimized with full-stack automated operations, it offers a more consistent experience across environments to help customers boost productivity more effectively.

Accelerate Digital Transformation for Global Customers

Alibaba Cloud also announced collaborations with enterprise customers in markets including Malaysia, South Korea, United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates, underscoring its unwavering commitment to its over 4 million global customers in exploring new opportunities presented by digital transformation and new AI trends.

First Asian Games Core Systems to be Hosted on Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba Cloud's technologies support the first "Asian Games on the Cloud”

In a mission to accelerate the digitalization of the Asian Games, the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee (HAGOC) has launched its core systems on Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group. Alibaba Cloud’s robust, reliable and secure technologies will support the first “Asian Games on the Cloud”, to facilitate more intelligent, sustainable, sophisticated and efficient Asian Games - to be held in Hangzhou, the company’s headquarters, from September 23 to October 8.

The core systems, comprising Games Management Systems (GMS), Results Distribution Systems (RDS) and Games Support Systems (GSS), will support around-the-clock operations of 56 competition venues and other critical facilities such as the information technology management center, main media center and the Hangzhou Asian Games Villages, serving more than 100,000 registered users, including the athletes, broadcasters, journalists, staff and volunteers from 45 countries and regions across the globe.

 

As the Games’ official information technology integrator and cloud service provider, Alibaba Cloud is responsible for running an all-on-cloud Asian Games, leveraging its proven track record in supporting large-scale worldwide sports events.  

Selina Yuan, President of International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, said: “We have extensive experience supporting large-scale global sports events building upon our proven cloud technologies and trusted services. We are proud and excited to return to our headquarters this year to help deliver an innovative, efficient, sustainable and inclusive Asian Games in Hangzhou. With the even more advanced core systems support, we are committed to an effective collaboration with the Games’ stakeholders, and with further improved cloud broadcast technologies, we will bring more engaging viewing experience to the global audience and sport fans.”

“The Hangzhou Asian Games will be another milestone for Alibaba Cloud to show how robust, scalable and secure cloud computing technologies can help drive digital transformation of large-scale sports events to bring sports and entertainment to every corner of the world,” Yuan added.  

State-of-the art architecture seamlessly integrates with cloud-native core systems

Alibaba Cloud provides the fundamental architecture that supports the seamless integration of the core systems as well as intelligent applications such as cloud broadcasting and event organization and communications.

For example, at the end of each competition the Results Distribution System will receive data from the timing and scoring system at the venue, which will be further integrated into the central system for distribution in different formats through different application programming interfaces (APIs), such as the results display and news feeds. All of these are built on the Alibaba Cloud to ensure efficient, accurate and stable results distributions.

Using cloud-native technology and running it on Alibaba Cloud’s container services, the company enables more agile, scalable and efficient operations of the event. In addition, there is no longer a need for physical data centers that require large dedicated space and maintenance facilities to run. Cloud resources will be released once the event is concluded, making the games more environmentally friendly. 

More than 5,000 hours of excitement transmitted through live cloud broadcasting

The Hangzhou Asian Games will also be the first in the games’ history during which Rights-Holding Broadcasters (RHBs) will receive live footage through public cloud infrastructure. Alibaba Cloud expects to transmit more than 5,000 hours of live footage through as many as 68 high-definition (HD) and ultra-high-definition (UHD) feeds during the event. In addition to live broadcast, the cloud-based content platform delivers footage in HD or UHD, highlights of the Games and news flashes for RHBs to present to the audience’s mobile or other devices. 

During the Games, the cloud broadcasting will transcend physical boundaries and bring the excitement to audiences across Asia and the rest of the world, through Alibaba Cloud’s infrastructure and services in Hangzhou to ApsaraVideo Live Centers in Shanghai and Beijing as well as regional cloud resources in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and Singapore.

Prior to cloud broadcasting, broadcasters had to rely on dedicated and more costly international telecommunication optical circuits and spend a considerable amount of time to set up the equipment, in order to send live footage halfway across the globe back to their home countries. Now leveraging the highly scalable, resilient and secure global infrastructure of Alibaba Cloud and its network acceleration service – Global Accelerator, live multilateral content in high quality over the public cloud with a fraction of the cost and minimum time for set-up can be delivered.

 

Cloud technology helps bring smart Asian Games Villages

The Hangzhou Asian Games has launched an Intelligent Operation Platform to manage the operation of the three Asian Games Villages, which is expected to host over 20,000 athletes, reporters and officials. The platform leverages Alibaba Cloud’s advanced visualization tool to analyze real-time intelligence to further streamline the management system, while providing more seamless user experience for those who live in the Villages.

For example, Alibaba Cloud’s solution utilizes real-time information to analyze traffic and crowd management. A warning will be provided on a dashboard if a public area gets too crowded for public safety. Extreme weather, power failure and fire warnings are also available for organizer’s intelligence-driven decisions.

With Alibaba Cloud’s natural language processing (NLP) technology, an intelligent service robot will also provide all-day online consulting services in both English and Chinese for people living in the Asian Games Villages through a web application service. The chatbot can provide real-time responses related to the services available in the Villages.

DingTalk Streamlines Organization and Communication for Asian Games

A low-code application developed for training venues booking on DingTalk for Asian Games

Alibaba’s intelligent collaboration workplace and application development platform DingTalk unveils its solution for Hangzhou Asian Games (DingTalk for Asian Games), an enhanced edition of DingTalk designed to improve operational efficiency of the Games. The proven solution is at the heart of the mega sports event’s organization and communications, to be held in Hangzhou from September 23 to October 8.

DingTalk for Asian Games is a cloud-native digital solution deployed and managed on the cloud, offering a reliable, scalable and secure user experience. It serves as a one-stop collaboration tool connecting stakeholders across all stages of the sports event lifecycle – from organizers and suppliers to volunteers and venue operators.

 

DingTalk for Hangzhou Asian Games

DingTalk for Hangzhou Asian Games

Ge Zhang, Deputy Director of Radio, Television and Information Technology Department of the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee, said, “Through the full cooperation between the Asian Games Organizing Committee and DingTalk, DingTalk for Asian Games has achieved the mega collaboration of ‘organization online, communication online and business online’ for participants across levels, departments and regions. DingTalk for Asian Games is not only the crystallization of Hangzhou’s digital economy, but also a valuable asset and experience Hangzhou would like to dedicate to future international large-scale sports events.”

DingTalk for Asian Games is playing diversified roles across different application scenarios, enabling the event to be more efficient, productive, convenient and intelligent.

“We’re excited to be delivering a solution to optimize the organization and operation of the Hangzhou Asian Games. DingTalk’s role in the Games is a critical one and an important opportunity to demonstrate how technology can make hosting events of this scale more streamlined and efficient,” said Alex Li, Vice President of DingTalk. “DingTalk for Asian Games, not only connects people and enables collaboration, but also offers a platform for unifying users around a common cause and interest. We believe for future mega sports events hosting, it’s an inevitable trend that such an intelligent collaboration platform will be needed for to enhance the operational efficiency and communication management of organizations.”

A versatile coordinator. To simplify an otherwise complex event organization, DingTalk for Asian Games offers a flat organizational structure where tens of thousands of staff and volunteers can easily identify and communicate with each other and external partners as well as share information and set up meetings. 

Leveraging Alibaba Cloud Machine Translation services based on its leading deep learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies, DingTalk for Asian Games offers intelligent real-time translation in 14 languages including Chinese, English, Japanese and Thai, improving communications between staff and participants from abroad.

Optimized for smartphone usage, DingTalk for Asian Games delivers instant audio and visual connections between users and the main operation center (MOC) of the Games. This allows the MOC to reach all staff and venues to accelerate decision-making and problem-solving.

A mobile workplace. The “digital office” offered by DingTalk for Asian Games enables all staff and volunteers to work closely together without the need to manage physical workplaces. Teams from the organizing committee and venue operators can collaborate on documents through online previews and reviews, real-time editing, and effective version control management. DingTalk for Asian Games can also process approval requests from around 300 applications, covering administrative services, the use of assets, the submission of suppliers’ certifications and marketing activities, among others. So far, it has supported more than 7,700 paperless approvals which are efficient and environmental friendly.  

An intelligent assistant. Cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities have been incorporated into DingTalk for Asian Games to understand, respond to, and create content to satisfy a wide range of needs during the event preparation. DingTalk’s built-in Chatbot, when used in Asian Games chat groups, can automatically provide timely answers to Games-related questions by analyzing and extracting information from the event’s related materials including game manuals and related group chats. Users can also leverage DingTalk’s AI capabilities to facilitate content digestion such as extracting highlights from press releases. 

A developer-friendly platform. With low-code features, DingTalk for Asian Games enables users to develop their own applications tailored to new scenarios. An example is a low-code appointment application developed for athletes to make trainings more convenient and efficient. Athletes can easily check the availability status of the training venues in Asian Games stadiums located in different areas of Hangzhou and nearby cities and book their training sessions in advance through the mini app on DingTalk for Asian Games.

DingTalk for Asian Games also provides full hardware support. The application is available on smartphones, tablets and computers, and supports devices that are compatible with DingTalk, including TV boxes, among others. 

The use of DingTalk for Asian Games over the past months has made it an integral part of the event organization. The number of messages peaked at more than 4.5 million in a single month in August, with more than 12,000 workgroups created. With a daily average of more than 50,000 visits, its services range from administrative approvals to conferencing, training, sponsor support, weather monitoring and medical support. Many other applications running on the event dedicated network will soon be available to further support the operation of the Games, including specialized systems for video broadcasting, IT management and volunteer management.

Alibaba Cloud Unveils AI Image Generation Model Tongyi Wanxiang and also launched ModelScopeGPT

Tongyi Wanxiang, an AI image generating model was recently introduced by Alibaba Cloud, in hopes of helping organizations in unleashing creativity and productivity. ModelScopeGPT was also launched to assist users with complicated AI tasks.

Alibaba Cloud Partners with Asia Pacific College to Nurture IT Talents in the Philippines

Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, is partnering with Asia Pacific College (APC) to train and strengthen the cloud computing competencies of teachers and students as part of its efforts on local digital talent empowerment in the Philippines.

Rhea-Luz Valbuena, Executive Director of School of Computing and Information Technologies (SoCIT) of Asia Pacific College, Josephine de la Cuesta, Executive Director of Academic Services of Asia Pacific College, Leo Liu, General Manager of the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau SAR, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence and Allen Guo, Country Manager for the Philippines, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)

Alibaba Cloud Collaborates with IBM To offer Security Solution

Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, announced it is collaborating with IBM to provide a security solution for businesses in APAC markets. 

Alibaba Cloud Unveils New AI Model to Support Enterprises’ Intelligence Transformation

Alibaba Cloud has launched Tongyi Qianwen to improve user experience and provide personalized AI features. Furthermore, it has also announced lower-cost options for its cloud products in order to make computing more accessible and inexpensive for businesses eager to capitalize on new prospects in this new age of AI and cloud era

Alibaba Unveils Top Technology Trend Forecasting for 2023

Alibaba DAMO Academy (“DAMO”), the global research initiative by Alibaba Group, has shared its annual forecasting of the leading technology trends that could shape many industries in the years ahead.