Alibaba and its affiliates have undergone a rapid expansion in the past year, bringing it into direct competition with US e-retailer Amazon. Photo: ReutersBeijing: China’s top e-commerce firm, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, is launching a $15 billion drive to build overseas research hubs as the deep-pocketed firm looks to compete with global leaders in e-commerce, logistics and cloud technology. “The Alibaba DAMO Academy will be at the forefront of developing next-generation technology that will spur the growth of Alibaba and our partners”, chief technology officer Jeff Zhang said. Since last year Alibaba has invested roughly $2 billion to acquire a majority stake in Singapore-based retailer Lazada.com, creating a network of e-commerce hubs across Southeast Asia in partnership with payment affiliate Ant Financial. Alibaba currently has 25,000 engineers on staff, it says, and says the new research infrastructure will help them meet a goal of two billion customers within two decades.

Source: Mint October 11, 2017 07:41 UTC