Alibaba, NTU Singapore launch AI institute

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group and Singapore's Nanyang Technological University jointly launched a research institute on Feb 28 through the signing of a memorandum of understanding. It is Alibaba's first joint research institute outside of China, and will be made up from a pool of 50 researchers from both organizations.

The institute will seek to combine NTU's human-centered artificial intelligence technology which has been applied to areas such as health, homes and communities, with Alibaba's leading technologies, including natural language processing, computer vision, machine learning and cloud computing, to further explore real-life AI solutions and develop technology breakthroughs.

Chief technology officer Zhang Jianfeng said at the ceremony that Singapore was an important market for Alibaba, and a key hub for the company in Southeast Asia, offering e-commerce, cloud computing and payment solutions to customers in various industries around the region.

He said the company hoped to work with talent in Singapore and researchers worldwide to explore technology innovation that could address common issues faced by society at large.

"We can also tap into our existing business resources in the region to magnify the impact of our technological development, making solutions affordable and accessible to all," Zhang added.

Subra Suresh, the university president, said the combined strengths of Alibaba with NTU would create smarter, healthier and happier cities for people of all ages.

"These technologies will be developed and tested on the Smart Campus to demonstrate the effectiveness of our solutions, so that our partners can have confidence in them before we take them to the market in Singapore and the rest of the world," he said.

Xinhua