With the unstoppable market appetite for AI, Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, continues to pioneer technology innovation across a diverse range of industries from technology development, imaging and travel to beauty and healthcare.
Leveraging a robust ‘Cloud + AI’ development strategy, Alibaba Cloud has witnessed substantial growth in external client revenue. This includes double-digit increases in public cloud services and remarkable triple-digit growth in AI-related product revenue for the fifth consecutive quarter according to the latest September quarter earnings.
In 2024, organisations are reimagining their operations and customer engagement strategies using Alibaba Cloud’s cutting-edge cloud solutions. From the revamped AI infrastructure to proprietary Qwen LLM series and advanced AI analytics, these technologies and products have grown beyond just operational tools. They are the catalysts for a Digital Transformation, enhancing customer experiences and operational efficiencies across the Asian landscape.
Selina Yuan, President of International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said: “We are thrilled to witness our robust cloud infrastructure and AI offerings empowering organisations across a diverse range of industries to further drive transformation in 2024 with our partners together. As the leading cloud service provider in Asia, we remain committed to helping our customers enhance their operations and deepen their connections with consumers, while collaborating with our ecosystem partners to unlock the full potential of AI and cloud technologies for businesses of all sizes.”
Supporting innovation in Japanese-language LLMs
In Japan, Lightblue, a University of Tokyo start-up that develops AI solutions such as image analysis and natural language processing with the aim of AI democratisation, has utilised Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen to support the development of its Japanese-language LLMs.
By leveraging Alibaba Cloud’s advanced architecture and training capabilities, Lightblue has been able to enhance its offerings for East Asian languages, specifically Japanese. The company also employed other cloud solutions from Alibaba Cloud such as Elastic Compute Service, Server Load Balancer and Object Storage Service which provides efficient and secure cloud services.
This collaboration highlights Alibaba Cloud’s commitment to supporting technology start-ups in pursuing their innovative goals.
“Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen has proven to be the best publicly available option for supporting the Japanese language. By fine-tuning our LLM with Qwen, we significantly improved its accuracy. This collaboration elevates our AI solutions and advances our mission to democratise technology in East Asia,” said Shunichi Taniguchi, Director & Senior Researcher at Lightblue.
Revolutionising image capture with great flexibility In Malaysia, Pictureworks, a leading provider of innovative photography imaging solutions, has harnessed Alibaba Cloud’s extensive AI and cloud technologies to revolutionise the flexibility and quality of high-resolution image capture.
This collaboration has been successfully implemented at seven premier tourist attractions across Asia, with additional projects underway. Notably, by utilising Alibaba Cloud’s robust and secure technologies, Pictureworks has produced over 150,000 photos at an award-winning theme park in Hong Kong.