Latest news with #SelinaYuan


Techday NZ
02-07-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Alibaba Cloud boosts APAC presence with new AI centre, data hubs
Alibaba Cloud has announced the launch of new data centres in Malaysia and the Philippines and the establishment of its first AI Global Competency Center in Singapore as part of its continued expansion across Asia Pacific and other regions. The announcement coincides with Alibaba Cloud's tenth anniversary in Singapore and the tenth year since it established its international headquarters in the city state. The company also revealed new upgrades to its cloud and AI technologies and released findings from a global study on green AI adoption. Regional expansion Alibaba Cloud has confirmed the opening of its third data centre in Malaysia and outlined plans to launch a second facility in the Philippines in the coming months. These additions follow recent infrastructure investments made in Thailand, Mexico, and South Korea earlier in the year. The company said the investments aim to support the rising demand for secure and scalable cloud solutions as more industries increase AI adoption. The expanded network is intended to provide capacity for businesses, developers, and organisations to innovate and manage growth across new markets. AI Global Competency Center Alibaba Cloud has launched its AI Global Competency Center (AIGCC) in Singapore. The centre targets support for more than 5,000 businesses and 100,000 developers worldwide, providing access to AI models, advanced computing resources, and an AI innovation lab. The lab offers token credits, datasets, and personalised support designed around industry needs. The AIGCC will engage over 1,000 companies and startups to co-develop AI solutions, and will introduce more than 10 AI agents for use in sectors such as finance, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, retail, and energy. Alibaba Cloud has also committed to partnering with over 120 universities and institutions globally to train 100,000 AI professionals each year. Selina Yuan, President of International Business at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said, "Over the past decade, Singapore has been both an innovation center and a gateway to the region's digital economy. As we celebrate this important milestone, we reaffirm our commitment to empowering businesses of all sizes and verticals while advancing cutting-edge AI innovations and driving sustainable digital transformation in Singapore for years to come. Together with our partners and customers, we look forward to shaping Singapore's future as a global leader in AI and cloud innovation." Technology developments Among the new cloud products presented, Alibaba Cloud has released upgrades to its Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings. The Data Transmission Service (DTS) now features "One Channel For AI", which manages both unstructured and structured data—ranging from documents to multimedia—into vector databases. This enables developers to create knowledge bases and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) applications more efficiently. The Platform for AI (PAI) has improved its inference capabilities, including optimisations for complex model architectures such as Mixture of Experts. A new feature, Expert Parallel (EP), aims to increase throughput for large language models (LLMs) while conserving computational resources. The Model Weights Service now allows for faster startup and scaling times, demonstrated by tests showing cold starts accelerated by up to 91.4% on certain models. Alibaba Cloud's ninth-generation Intel-based Enterprise Elastic Compute Service instances will be rolled out to new global markets, including Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates, Germany, and the UK. This model, first launched in April, reportedly offers 20% better computing efficiency compared to prior versions, with performance improvements of up to 50% for specific workloads. The company's sustainability platform, Energy Expert, has introduced an AI-driven ESG reporting solution built on Alibaba's own model, Qwen. This platform aims to streamline ESG report generation and compliance, providing automated content creation and structured guidance for organisations needing to align with international standards such as ISSB, GRI, and SASB. Findings on green AI Alibaba Cloud has published results from a global Forrester Consulting survey on green AI, in collaboration with NTU Global e-Sustainability CorpLab. The survey—of over 464 business and IT leaders—revealed 84% of those with sustainability strategies regard green AI as important, but 69% of organisations remain at an early stage of adoption. Key barriers identified included a lack of sustainably sourced AI hardware materials and challenges in optimising data centre energy use. Significant skills and knowledge gaps were also reported, with 74% indicating uncertainty around defining green AI strategies and 76% lacking operational expertise in the field. The study recommends strategies like powering data centres with renewable energy, optimising models for edge computing, and enhancing regulatory collaboration. Customer engagement Several international clients were highlighted for their collaborations with Alibaba Cloud. These include GoTo Group, which migrated its business intelligence platform to Alibaba Cloud's MaxCompute solution, aiming for greater scalability and resilience. William Xiong, Group Chief Technology Officer of GoTo Group, said during the summit, "The migration to Alibaba Cloud's MaxCompute has enhanced the scalability and resilience of our data platform. By delivering cost efficiency, performance parity, and operational continuity, this collaboration strengthens the technical foundation for GoTo's ecosystem. This partnership positions us to drive innovation and deliver transformative solutions for millions of users across the ecosystem, while staying aligned with Indonesia's data sovereignty goals." GoTo Financial also reported efficiency gains through Alibaba Cloud's database products, including PolarDB and Tair, which now support over 500 microservices with low latency. Qwen, Alibaba's large language model family, continues to be deployed in numerous markets. VisionTech, based in Singapore, has integrated Qwen into its generative AI platform to support multilingual operations. The company reports a 25% reduction in infrastructure costs and improved response times as a result. "Our partnership with Alibaba Cloud allows us to deliver smarter, scalable, and enterprise-ready AI solutions while maintaining operational efficiency and customer satisfaction," said Lim Hui Jie, CEO of VisionTech. "Qwen's strong performance in handling multilingual conversational inputs and real-time translation gives us a distinct edge over other LLMs, enabling us to fast-track deployments and improve user engagement— whether it's English, Chinese, Malay, or Japanese. By dynamically switching languages in real-time, our AI bots create a seamless experience that resonates with users in various markets, ensuring that our solutions feel native and culturally aligned." FLUX in Japan and Al-Futtaim in the Middle East have also joined partnerships with Alibaba Cloud, focusing on deploying Qwen-based solutions and expanding the reach of AI-powered services in their respective markets.


The Sun
02-07-2025
- Business
- The Sun
Alibaba Cloud Celebrates 10 Years in Singapore with New Data Centers and AI Global Competency Center
• New data centers in Malaysia and the Philippines to meet growing demand for AI and cloud services • New center in Singapore designed to support over 5,000 businesses and 100,000 developers to accelerate enterprise AI innovation and talent development globally • Driving AI innovation with product upgrades and global green AI research • Business showcases for Qwen, Alibaba's large language model, across Asia and the Middle East SINGAPORE - Media OutReach Newswire - 2 July 2025 - Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, today marked a decade of operations in Singapore and the 10th anniversary of the establishment of its international headquarters in the country. To commemorate this milestone, it unveiled new infrastructure investments, a new AI competency center, advanced cloud and AI technologies, and global research findings on green AI adoption at its Global Summit, underscoring its ongoing commitment to advancing AI innovation. Held in Singapore, the Alibaba Cloud Global Summit gathered over 500 leaders from business, technology, and the public sector worldwide to explore the future of AI, cloud computing, and sustainable digital transformation. The event also reaffirmed Singapore's position as a strategic hub and international headquarters for Alibaba Cloud's long-term growth in Asia-Pacific and beyond. Selina Yuan, President of International Business at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said, 'Over the past decade, Singapore has been both an innovation center and a gateway to the region's digital economy. As we celebrate this important milestone, we reaffirm our commitment to empowering businesses of all sizes and verticals while advancing cutting-edge AI innovations and driving sustainable digital transformation in Singapore for years to come. Together with our partners and customers, we look forward to shaping Singapore's future as a global leader in AI and cloud innovation.' New Data Centers in Malaysia and the Philippines To meet the growing demand for cloud and AI services across Southeast Asia, Alibaba Cloud announced the launch of its third data center in Malaysia on July 1, 2025. It also plans to open its second data center in the Philippines in October 2025. Those expansions build on earlier infrastructure investments in Thailand, Mexico, and South Korea, announced in the first half of 2025. This growing network ensures that Alibaba Cloud can meet the rising global demand for secure, resilient and scalable cloud services, empowering businesses, developers, and organizations to innovate and scale with confidence as AI adoption accelerates across industries. Launch of AI Global Competency Center to Power Enterprise Innovation During the event, Alibaba Cloud launched its first AI Global Competency Center (AIGCC) in Singapore. The move aims to accelerate AI adoption by supporting enterprises of all sizes, from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to large-scale organizations, while also addressing the growing global demand for AI talent. The center is designed to support over 5,000 businesses and 100,000 developers, offering access to advanced AI models and powerful computing resources to accelerate experimentation and deployment. Developers and businesses will benefit from the AI Innovation Lab, which offers token credits, curated datasets and personalized support tailored to real-world scenarios and industry needs. As a collaborative innovation hub, the AIGCC aims to bring together more than 1,000 companies and startups to co-develop next-generation AI solutions, fostering an ecosystem of applied innovation. The center will also introduce over 10 AI agents across key industries - including finance, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, retail and energy - demonstrating AI's potential across different verticals. To build a robust AI talent pipeline, Alibaba Cloud will partner with more than 120 universities and institutions globally, with the goal of training 100,000 AI professionals annually. New Cloud Products for Global AI Development Alibaba Cloud announced new offerings to international customers by upgrading Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) products and introducing new AI tools. Alibaba Cloud Data Transmission Service (DTS), a real-time data streaming service, introduced a new 'One Channel For AI' capability to streamline multimodal data preparation. This feature establishes an end-to-end pipeline that automatically converts both unstructured and structured data—including documents, images, tables, audio, and video—into vector databases, enabling developers to create real-time knowledge bases and create Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) applications with just few clicks. By automating the vectorization workflow, the upgraded DTS lowers technical barriers, enabling businesses to deploy LLM-powered applications faster and more efficiently. Alibaba Cloud's Platform for AI (PAI) has enhanced its high-performance AI inference capabilities to better support complex models like Mixture of Experts (MoE) and large-scale deployments with two key improvements in its PAI-Elastic Algorithm Service (EAS). For MoE architectures, PAI-EAS now features Expert Parallel (EP), an advanced optimization that works with a prefill-decode disaggregation framework to boost efficiency. This combination significantly increases inference efficiency, enabling higher throughput for LLMs while optimizing resource utilization. For example, the EP distributed deployment for Qwen3 235B achieves a TPS (Tokens Per Second) performance exceeding 15k, while maintaining an average per-token latency of under 50 milliseconds. PAI-EAS also tackles slow cold starts and inefficient scaling with its new Model Weights Service, which dramatically reduces loading times. This makes it possible to spin up instances in seconds, rather than minutes. Tests with Qwen3-8B show 89.8% faster cold starts and 97.6% quicker scaling, while Qwen3-32B achieves 91.4% faster cold starts and near-instant scaling. In response to customer demand, the company also revealed that its 9th Generation intel-based Enterprise Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance will be available across additional global markets from July, including Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and the UK. Since its launch in April, nearly 10,000 businesses have adopted the upgraded instance, leveraging its industry-leading performance. This latest generation delivers 20% greater computing efficiency compared to previous iterations. By integrating elastic Remote Direct Memory Access (eRDMA) technology for ultra-fast networking, it achieves up to 50% performance gains in high-performance computing (HPC), search recommendations, and Redis database workloads. Alibaba Cloud's sustainability platform, Energy Expert, introduced a cutting-edge AI-driven ESG Reporting solution, empowering organizations to navigate the complexities of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures with precision and ease. Powered by Alibaba's proprietary AI model Qwen, the innovative solution streamlines report generation through AI-powered tools - such as guided structuring, automated content creation and actionable insights - while enabling seamless collaboration via real-time task management and progress tracking. Designed to align with global standards— including the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)—the platform ensures compliance, reduces operational costs, and strengthens audit readiness through traceable data lineage and centralized record-keeping. New Global Study Reveals Growing Awareness of Green AI and Adoption Challenges Also unveiled at the Global Summit were findings from a global study on the development and adoption of artificial intelligence systems that minimize energy consumption and environmental impact, known as green AI. The study was conducted by Forrester Consulting and commissioned by Alibaba in collaboration with Alibaba-NTU Global e-Sustainability CorpLab (ANGEL). Surveying over 464 business and IT leaders worldwide, including Singapore, the study reveals the growing recognition of the importance of green AI, but also highlights a significant gap between vision and execution. The study found that while 84% of leaders who have implemented an AI sustainability vision consider green AI to be important, 69% of organizations globally are still at the beginner stage of AI adoption. Many cited persistent technical challenges as key barriers to progress – among them, the lack of sustainably sourced materials for AI hardware (80%) and the difficulty of optimizing data center energy usage (73%). Beyond the technical hurdles, the survey also revealed widespread capability gaps. A significant number of decision-makers indicated they lacked the knowledge to define a clear green AI strategy (74%), as well as the skills needed to implement and operate it (76%). Considering those challenges, the study recommends several key strategies to drive wider adoption of Green AI, including powering data centers with renewable energy, deploying edge computing with optimized smaller models to reduce data center loads, and developing applications with code that requires less computational power. It also highlights the importance of increased collaboration between public and private sectors on regulation and standards and leveraging open-source models to minimize pre-training and energy consumption. International Customers Leveraging Cloud and Qwen for AI Innovation To help drive digital transformation and accelerate AI innovation initiatives, an increasing number of international customers have selected Alibaba Cloud as its digital solutions provider for its trusted cloud computing capabilities and advanced AI technologies. After successfully migrating GoTo Financial's infrastructure to Alibaba Cloud, GoTo Group, the largest digital ecosystem in Indonesia, has now migrated its core business intelligence data platform to Alibaba Cloud's MaxCompute to boost operational agility and drive cost efficiency. With MaxCompute's fully managed architecture and automation, Alibaba Cloud delivered a seamless, six-month migration with tens of petabytes of data across GoTo's complex system, achieving zero downtime and uninterrupted business continuity for GoTo Group throughout the process. William Xiong, Group Chief Technology Officer of GoTo Group, said during the summit, 'The migration to Alibaba Cloud's MaxCompute has enhanced the scalability and resilience of our data platform. By delivering cost efficiency, performance parity, and operational continuity, this collaboration strengthens the technical foundation for GoTo's ecosystem. This partnership positions us to drive innovation and deliver transformative solutions for millions of users across the ecosystem, while staying aligned with Indonesia's data sovereignty goals.' To enhance data management efficiency, GoTo Financial has migrated its lending workload to Alibaba Cloud's database solutions. By leveraging cloud-native database PolarDB and in-memory database Tair, GoTo Financial's lending systems now deliver high performance and ultra-low latency, seamlessly supporting over 500 microservices. Many customers have also leveraged Alibaba Cloud's flagship large language model, Qwen, to deliver innovative solutions, thanks to its robust multilingual capabilities. Qwen 3, the latest iteration of the Qwen family, supports 119 languages and has demonstrated exceptional performance in multilingual mathematical reasoning and translation, particularly in Asian languages, according to public datasets. VisionTech, a generative AI company focused on boosting sales, enhancing customer experiences, and addressing manpower challenges in Singapore, tapped into Alibaba Cloud's infrastructure and AI technologies to fuel its business growth across Southeast Asia. With Alibaba Cloud's services, including Elastic Compute Service (ECS) and a strong regional presence, VisionTech reduced infrastructure costs by over 25%, improved support turnaround times, and accelerated AI deployment for enterprises and SMEs. VisionTech is also incorporating Qwen, Alibaba's flagship large language model, as one of its core large language models (LLMs) to power its solutions, enhancing its AI bots' ability to seamlessly manage multilingual interactions. 'Our partnership with Alibaba Cloud allows us to deliver smarter, scalable, and enterprise-ready AI solutions while maintaining operational efficiency and customer satisfaction,' said Lim Hui Jie, CEO of VisionTech. 'Qwen's strong performance in handling multilingual conversational inputs and real-time translation gives us a distinct edge over other LLMs, enabling us to fast-track deployments and improve user engagement— whether it's English, Chinese, Malay, or Japanese. By dynamically switching languages in real-time, our AI bots create a seamless experience that resonates with users in various markets, ensuring that our solutions feel native and culturally aligned.' FLUX, a leading Japanese technology solution provider, partnered with Alibaba Cloud to accelerate AI adoption in Japan. Through this collaboration, FLUX will introduce Qwen—Alibaba's family of large language models (LLMs)—in various sizes to Japanese enterprises, enabling GenAI integration into their critical workflows. Additionally, FLUX will leverage Qwen to develop FLUX LLM solution, a customized AI solution designed to help Japanese businesses of all sizes optimize operations and enhance service capabilities. Alibaba Cloud and Al-Futtaim, a Dubai-based, 90-year-old, privately held and diversified business group - recognized as one of the region's most progressive enterprises operating across 18 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia - have signed a strategic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to accelerate Al-Futtaim's digital transformation and global innovation agenda. Under the agreement, Al-Futtaim will access Alibaba Cloud's advanced AI capabilities, including proprietary foundation models and open-source frameworks to drive AI-powered innovation across its business units. The collaboration will also enable Al-Futtaim to leverage Alibaba's global cloud infrastructure, broad digital ecosystem, and industry expertise to support its expansion into key international markets and scale transformative outcomes across sectors.


Zawya
02-07-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Alibaba Cloud Celebrates 10 Years in Singapore with New Data Centers and AI Global Competency Center
New data centers in Malaysia and the Philippines to meet growing demand for AI and cloud services New center in Singapore designed to support over 5,000 businesses and 100,000 developers to accelerate enterprise AI innovation and talent development globally Driving AI innovation with product upgrades and global green AI research Business showcases for Qwen, Alibaba's large language model, across Asia and the Middle East SINGAPORE - Media OutReach Newswire - 2 July 2025 - Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, today marked a decade of operations in Singapore and the 10th anniversary of the establishment of its international headquarters in the country. To commemorate this milestone, it unveiled new infrastructure investments, a new AI competency center, advanced cloud and AI technologies, and global research findings on green AI adoption at its Global Summit, underscoring its ongoing commitment to advancing AI innovation. Held in Singapore, the Alibaba Cloud Global Summit gathered over 500 leaders from business, technology, and the public sector worldwide to explore the future of AI, cloud computing, and sustainable digital transformation. The event also reaffirmed Singapore's position as a strategic hub and international headquarters for Alibaba Cloud's long-term growth in Asia-Pacific and beyond. Selina Yuan, President of International Business at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said, "Over the past decade, Singapore has been both an innovation center and a gateway to the region's digital economy. As we celebrate this important milestone, we reaffirm our commitment to empowering businesses of all sizes and verticals while advancing cutting-edge AI innovations and driving sustainable digital transformation in Singapore for years to come. Together with our partners and customers, we look forward to shaping Singapore's future as a global leader in AI and cloud innovation." New Data Centers in Malaysia and the Philippines To meet the growing demand for cloud and AI services across Southeast Asia, Alibaba Cloud announced the launch of its third data center in Malaysia on July 1, 2025. It also plans to open its second data center in the Philippines in October 2025. Those expansions build on earlier infrastructure investments in Thailand, Mexico, and South Korea, announced in the first half of 2025. This growing network ensures that Alibaba Cloud can meet the rising global demand for secure, resilient and scalable cloud services, empowering businesses, developers, and organizations to innovate and scale with confidence as AI adoption accelerates across industries. Launch of AI Global Competency Center to Power Enterprise Innovation During the event, Alibaba Cloud launched its first AI Global Competency Center (AIGCC) in Singapore. The move aims to accelerate AI adoption by supporting enterprises of all sizes, from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to large-scale organizations, while also addressing the growing global demand for AI talent. The center is designed to support over 5,000 businesses and 100,000 developers, offering access to advanced AI models and powerful computing resources to accelerate experimentation and deployment. Developers and businesses will benefit from the AI Innovation Lab, which offers token credits, curated datasets and personalized support tailored to real-world scenarios and industry needs. As a collaborative innovation hub, the AIGCC aims to bring together more than 1,000 companies and startups to co-develop next-generation AI solutions, fostering an ecosystem of applied innovation. The center will also introduce over 10 AI agents across key industries - including finance, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, retail and energy - demonstrating AI's potential across different verticals. To build a robust AI talent pipeline, Alibaba Cloud will partner with more than 120 universities and institutions globally, with the goal of training 100,000 AI professionals annually. New Cloud Products for Global AI Development Alibaba Cloud announced new offerings to international customers by upgrading Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) products and introducing new AI tools. Alibaba Cloud Data Transmission Service (DTS), a real-time data streaming service, introduced a new "One Channel For AI" capability to streamline multimodal data preparation. This feature establishes an end-to-end pipeline that automatically converts both unstructured and structured data—including documents, images, tables, audio, and video—into vector databases, enabling developers to create real-time knowledge bases and create Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) applications with just few clicks. By automating the vectorization workflow, the upgraded DTS lowers technical barriers, enabling businesses to deploy LLM-powered applications faster and more efficiently. Alibaba Cloud's Platform for AI (PAI) has enhanced its high-performance AI inference capabilities to better support complex models like Mixture of Experts (MoE) and large-scale deployments with two key improvements in its PAI-Elastic Algorithm Service (EAS). For MoE architectures, PAI-EAS now features Expert Parallel (EP), an advanced optimization that works with a prefill-decode disaggregation framework to boost efficiency. This combination significantly increases inference efficiency, enabling higher throughput for LLMs while optimizing resource utilization. For example, the EP distributed deployment for Qwen3 235B achieves a TPS (Tokens Per Second) performance exceeding 15k, while maintaining an average per-token latency of under 50 milliseconds. PAI-EAS also tackles slow cold starts and inefficient scaling with its new Model Weights Service, which dramatically reduces loading times. This makes it possible to spin up instances in seconds, rather than minutes. Tests with Qwen3-8B show 89.8% faster cold starts and 97.6% quicker scaling, while Qwen3-32B achieves 91.4% faster cold starts and near-instant scaling. In response to customer demand, the company also revealed that its 9th Generation intel-based Enterprise Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance will be available across additional global markets from July, including Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and the UK. Since its launch in April, nearly 10,000 businesses have adopted the upgraded instance, leveraging its industry-leading performance. This latest generation delivers 20% greater computing efficiency compared to previous iterations. By integrating elastic Remote Direct Memory Access (eRDMA) technology for ultra-fast networking, it achieves up to 50% performance gains in high-performance computing (HPC), search recommendations, and Redis database workloads. Alibaba Cloud's sustainability platform, Energy Expert, introduced a cutting-edge AI-driven ESG Reporting solution, empowering organizations to navigate the complexities of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures with precision and ease. Powered by Alibaba's proprietary AI model Qwen, the innovative solution streamlines report generation through AI-powered tools - such as guided structuring, automated content creation and actionable insights - while enabling seamless collaboration via real-time task management and progress tracking. Designed to align with global standards— including the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)—the platform ensures compliance, reduces operational costs, and strengthens audit readiness through traceable data lineage and centralized record-keeping. New Global Study Reveals Growing Awareness of Green AI and Adoption Challenges Also unveiled at the Global Summit were findings from a global study on the development and adoption of artificial intelligence systems that minimize energy consumption and environmental impact, known as green AI. The study was conducted by Forrester Consulting and commissioned by Alibaba in collaboration with Alibaba-NTU Global e-Sustainability CorpLab (ANGEL). Surveying over 464 business and IT leaders worldwide, including Singapore, the study reveals the growing recognition of the importance of green AI, but also highlights a significant gap between vision and execution. The study found that while 84% of leaders who have implemented an AI sustainability vision consider green AI to be important, 69% of organizations globally are still at the beginner stage of AI adoption. Many cited persistent technical challenges as key barriers to progress – among them, the lack of sustainably sourced materials for AI hardware (80%) and the difficulty of optimizing data center energy usage (73%). Beyond the technical hurdles, the survey also revealed widespread capability gaps. A significant number of decision-makers indicated they lacked the knowledge to define a clear green AI strategy (74%), as well as the skills needed to implement and operate it (76%). Considering those challenges, the study recommends several key strategies to drive wider adoption of Green AI, including powering data centers with renewable energy, deploying edge computing with optimized smaller models to reduce data center loads, and developing applications with code that requires less computational power. It also highlights the importance of increased collaboration between public and private sectors on regulation and standards and leveraging open-source models to minimize pre-training and energy consumption. International Customers Leveraging Cloud and Qwen for AI Innovation To help drive digital transformation and accelerate AI innovation initiatives, an increasing number of international customers have selected Alibaba Cloud as its digital solutions provider for its trusted cloud computing capabilities and advanced AI technologies. After successfully migrating GoTo Financial's infrastructure to Alibaba Cloud, GoTo Group, the largest digital ecosystem in Indonesia, has now migrated its core business intelligence data platform to Alibaba Cloud's MaxCompute to boost operational agility and drive cost efficiency. With MaxCompute's fully managed architecture and automation, Alibaba Cloud delivered a seamless, six-month migration with tens of petabytes of data across GoTo's complex system, achieving zero downtime and uninterrupted business continuity for GoTo Group throughout the process. William Xiong, Group Chief Technology Officer of GoTo Group, said during the summit, "The migration to Alibaba Cloud's MaxCompute has enhanced the scalability and resilience of our data platform. By delivering cost efficiency, performance parity, and operational continuity, this collaboration strengthens the technical foundation for GoTo's ecosystem. This partnership positions us to drive innovation and deliver transformative solutions for millions of users across the ecosystem, while staying aligned with Indonesia's data sovereignty goals." To enhance data management efficiency, GoTo Financial has migrated its lending workload to Alibaba Cloud's database solutions. By leveraging cloud-native database PolarDB and in-memory database Tair, GoTo Financial's lending systems now deliver high performance and ultra-low latency, seamlessly supporting over 500 microservices. Many customers have also leveraged Alibaba Cloud's flagship large language model, Qwen, to deliver innovative solutions, thanks to its robust multilingual capabilities. Qwen 3, the latest iteration of the Qwen family, supports 119 languages and has demonstrated exceptional performance in multilingual mathematical reasoning and translation, particularly in Asian languages, according to public datasets. VisionTech, a generative AI company focused on boosting sales, enhancing customer experiences, and addressing manpower challenges in Singapore, tapped into Alibaba Cloud's infrastructure and AI technologies to fuel its business growth across Southeast Asia. With Alibaba Cloud's services, including Elastic Compute Service (ECS) and a strong regional presence, VisionTech reduced infrastructure costs by over 25%, improved support turnaround times, and accelerated AI deployment for enterprises and SMEs. VisionTech is also incorporating Qwen, Alibaba's flagship large language model, as one of its core large language models (LLMs) to power its solutions, enhancing its AI bots' ability to seamlessly manage multilingual interactions. "Our partnership with Alibaba Cloud allows us to deliver smarter, scalable, and enterprise-ready AI solutions while maintaining operational efficiency and customer satisfaction," said Lim Hui Jie, CEO of VisionTech. "Qwen's strong performance in handling multilingual conversational inputs and real-time translation gives us a distinct edge over other LLMs, enabling us to fast-track deployments and improve user engagement— whether it's English, Chinese, Malay, or Japanese. By dynamically switching languages in real-time, our AI bots create a seamless experience that resonates with users in various markets, ensuring that our solutions feel native and culturally aligned." FLUX, a leading Japanese technology solution provider, partnered with Alibaba Cloud to accelerate AI adoption in Japan. Through this collaboration, FLUX will introduce Qwen—Alibaba's family of large language models (LLMs)—in various sizes to Japanese enterprises, enabling GenAI integration into their critical workflows. Additionally, FLUX will leverage Qwen to develop FLUX LLM solution, a customized AI solution designed to help Japanese businesses of all sizes optimize operations and enhance service capabilities. Alibaba Cloud and Al-Futtaim, a Dubai-based, 90-year-old, privately held and diversified business group - recognized as one of the region's most progressive enterprises operating across 18 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia - have signed a strategic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to accelerate Al-Futtaim's digital transformation and global innovation agenda. Under the agreement, Al-Futtaim will access Alibaba Cloud's advanced AI capabilities, including proprietary foundation models and open-source frameworks to drive AI-powered innovation across its business units. The collaboration will also enable Al-Futtaim to leverage Alibaba's global cloud infrastructure, broad digital ecosystem, and industry expertise to support its expansion into key international markets and scale transformative outcomes across sectors. Hashtag: #AlibabaCloud The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. About Alibaba Cloud Established in 2009, Alibaba Cloud ( is the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group. It offers a complete suite of cloud services to customers worldwide, including elastic computing, database, storage, network virtualization services, large-scale computing, security, big data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) services. Alibaba has been named the leading IaaS provider in Asia Pacific by revenue in U.S. dollars since 2018, according to Gartner. It has also maintained its position as one of the world's leading public cloud IaaS service providers since 2018, according to IDC. About the Green AI Survey Commissioned By Alibaba and developed in collaboration with Alibaba-NTU Global e-Sustainability CorpLab (ANGEL), Forrester conducted an online survey of 464 business and IT decision-makers from high-tech companies and the public sector with responsibility over their organization's green AI strategy to evaluate the market's current knowledge and adoption of green AI. It collected feedback in April 2025 on green AI adoption, challenges and future plans from C-level executives, vice presidents, directors, and managers (or the equivalent of). Respondents were located across 11 markets in Asia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea), Europe (France, Germany, and United Kingdom), Latin America (Mexico and Brazil), and North America (The United States). Alibaba Cloud


Channel Post MEA
21-04-2025
- Business
- Channel Post MEA
Crayon Becomes Global Partner Of Alibaba Cloud
Crayon has been named the global partner of Alibaba Cloud – reinforcing its position as a leading multi-cloud advisor. This partnership expands Crayon's ability to help businesses integrate and optimize the secure and cutting-edge technology of Alibaba Cloud alongside Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Oracle Cloud, ensuring customers make informed, strategic cloud decisions. Alibaba Cloud is the dominant cloud provider in China and plays a leading role in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Europe, where organizations rely on its infrastructure either as their primary cloud or as part of a multi-cloud strategy. Many businesses in finance, e-commerce, and AI-driven industries choose Alibaba Cloud for its regulatory compliance, scalability, and advanced AI capabilities. With this partnership, Crayon ensures customers can adopt Alibaba Cloud while maintaining interoperability across cloud platforms, managing costs effectively, and meeting compliance requirements. 'Businesses don't just need more cloud options – they need the right expertise to make the best cloud decisions,' said Melissa Mulholland, CEO at Crayon. 'As Alibaba Cloud's global partner, we are uniquely positioned to help organizations optimize their cloud strategies – whether they are entering new markets, balancing multi-cloud performance, or ensuring compliance across regions.' 'We are delighted to have Crayon as our global partner. As Alibaba Cloud continues to expand globally, I believe that our partnership with Crayon will deliver enormous mutual benefit to both our customers and channels. Combining Alibaba Cloud's innovation and AI capabilities together with Crayon's technical competence and cloud optimization, the partnership will provide customers with an impressive new choice of services to consider,' said Selina Yuan, President of International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. For businesses expanding into Asia and high-growth markets, this partnership provides the necessary advisory expertise to navigate cloud complexity and local regulations while ensuring seamless integration with existing cloud environments. Crayon's deep experience in FinOps and cloud cost optimization ensures that companies can scale efficiently while maintaining control over cloud spending and performance. This collaboration also strengthens Crayon's partner network, including ISVs and system integrators, who can now leverage Alibaba Cloud's global infrastructure as part of their offerings. By adding Alibaba Cloud to its advisory services, Crayon continues to provide customers with the insights and expertise needed to build resilient, scalable, and cost-efficient cloud strategies. 0 0
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Crayon becomes Alibaba Cloud's global partner, enhancing multi-cloud advisory services
OSLO, Norway, April 15, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Crayon has been named the global partner of Alibaba Cloud - reinforcing its position as a leading multi-cloud advisor. This partnership expands Crayon's ability to help businesses integrate and optimize the secure and cutting-edge technology of Alibaba Cloud alongside Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Oracle Cloud, ensuring customers make informed, strategic cloud decisions. Alibaba Cloud is the dominant cloud provider in China and plays a leading role in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Europe, where organizations rely on its infrastructure either as their primary cloud or as part of a multi-cloud strategy. Many businesses in finance, e-commerce, and AI-driven industries choose Alibaba Cloud for its regulatory compliance, scalability, and advanced AI capabilities. With this partnership, Crayon ensures customers can adopt Alibaba Cloud while maintaining interoperability across cloud platforms, managing costs effectively, and meeting compliance requirements. "Businesses don't just need more cloud options – they need the right expertise to make the best cloud decisions," said Melissa Mulholland, CEO at Crayon. "As Alibaba Cloud's global partner, we are uniquely positioned to help organizations optimize their cloud strategies – whether they are entering new markets, balancing multi-cloud performance, or ensuring compliance across regions." "We are delighted to have Crayon as our global partner. As Alibaba Cloud continues to expand globally, I believe that our partnership with Crayon will deliver enormous mutual benefit to both our customers and channels. Combining Alibaba Cloud's innovation and AI capabilities together with Crayon's technical competence and cloud optimization, the partnership will provide customers with an impressive new choice of services to consider," said Selina Yuan, President of International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. For businesses expanding into Asia and high-growth markets, this partnership provides the necessary advisory expertise to navigate cloud complexity and local regulations while ensuring seamless integration with existing cloud environments. Crayon's deep experience in FinOps and cloud cost optimization ensures that companies can scale efficiently while maintaining control over cloud spending and performance. This collaboration also strengthens Crayon's partner network, including ISVs and system integrators, who can now leverage Alibaba Cloud's global infrastructure as part of their offerings. By adding Alibaba Cloud to its advisory services, Crayon continues to provide customers with the insights and expertise needed to build resilient, scalable, and cost-efficient cloud strategies. For media enquiries, please contact:Astrid Mannion-GibsonGlobal Senior Communications Manager, CrayonPhone: +47 466 32 010Email: FuCommunication Manager, Alibaba CloudPhone: +86 156 0180 4303Email: About Crayon Crayon, headquartered in Oslo, Norway, spans 46 countries with 4,000 professionals. More than 100,000 diverse businesses trust us to help them strategically acquire and optimize software investments, embrace cloud and AI technologies, and drive innovation through enhanced efficiency with a positive impact for the greater good. We are on the customers' side. Always. Explore more at About Alibaba Cloud Established in 2009, Alibaba Cloud ( is the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group. It offers a complete suite of cloud services to customers worldwide, including elastic computing, database, storage, network virtualization services, large-scale computing, security, big data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) services. Alibaba has been named the leading IaaS provider in Asia Pacific by revenue in U.S. dollars since 2018, according to Gartner. It has also maintained its position as one of the world's leading public cloud IaaS service providers since 2018, according to IDC. This information was brought to you by Cision The following files are available for download: AllBaba AdobeStock 174336399 1 View original content: Sign in to access your portfolio