Alibaba CTO touts big data, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality tools.
When Alibaba emerged in 2014 with a new IPO, no one really expected that it could challenge online retail king Amazon. Now, Alibaba chief technology officer Jianfeng “Jeff” Zhang says that the company is extending its reach into a wide spectrum of businesses and technologies from big data to artificial intelligence and virtual reality, all of which will help them challenge Amazon’s dominance, according to the Seattle Times.
In a recent address at the Alibaba Technology Forum in Seattle, Zhang told the audience of 300 engineers, “That’s our competitive edge compared to other technology companies. We have different kinds of data. WE possess all these data from our ecosystem. It’s rich and diverse.” The data is drawn not only from its own e-commerce platforms, but also from companies in which its owns a stake, like Sina Weibo and Ant Financial. The Forum provides the opportunity for local engineers to delve more deeply into the technologies Alibaba leverages.
And Alibaba also entered the world of mobile payments and biometrics in 2014, as Innovative Retail Technologies reported. Alibaba partnered with Chinese technology firm Huawei to add fingerprint recognition to their Alipay Wallet mobile app.
And last year, Alibaba snatched up a stake in U.S. flash-sales retailer Zulily Inc., making them a ten-percent owner. This move meant that Alibaba was becoming a force to be reckoned with in the American e-retail marketplace. The Chinese e-commerce giant also has asserted that it has the ability to combat counterfeits and fakes in its marketplace, leveraging its scale, technology and data prowess to locate and eliminate them.
Alibaba reported $15.7 billion in revenue and $11 billion in profits last year, compared to Amazon’s $107 billion in net sales and $596 million in profit. Alibaba differs from Amazon in that while Amazon sells mostly directly to consumers, Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms act predominantly as middlemen between buyers and sellers.
Zhang explained that data processing and analytics are a top technology priority for Alibaba. Some of the company’s data-processing systems are used to monitor and screen for counterfeits. “Alibaba has over a billion products on its platforms at any given time. It’s hard for us to manually scan it all,” he said, saying data such as where irregular behaviors are happening is helpful in tracking counterfeit activities.
Among the other technologies the company is paying attention to are augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR), voice recognition and artificial intelligence. Zhang said, “Our strategy encompasses a wide range of fields. It’s way beyond traditional e-commerce. What’s the real breakthrough? Is it a driverless car? Is it AR/VR?” he asked. “We’re still exploring and there’s no clear answer. In the end, it will depend on which company can leverage it to achieve scale.”
When Alibaba opened its IPO in 2014, founder and CEO Jack Ma was already contemplating the potential of big data analytics.He stated, “EBay may be a shark in the ocean but I am a crocodile in the Yangtze. If we fight in the ocean, we lose, but if we fight in the river, we win.”
