The cloud computing sector of Alibaba Group, Aliyun, has launched an artificial intelligence service that is the first of kind in China. The platform, named DT PAI, combines the algorithms utilized by Alibaba with machine and deep learning techniques which are then presented in a drag and drop interface. The platform may be used by developers to predict user behavior without the unnecessary step of creating new code. The majority of Alibaba’s revenue is brought about through its developed ecommerce business, but the group is beginning to look toward the future with heavy investments in the cloud computing sector. In July, Alibaba had dumped one billion dollars into Aliyun with the hopes of expanding its cloud services on a global scale, with extension into Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the United States.
China is in the midst of economic uncertainty, so the developing cloud computing sector provides some hope to an otherwise lackluster second quarter for Alibaba. Alibaba has claimed that quarterly revenue from its cloud computing and Internet infrastructure business jumped over 106 percent year-over-year to $78 million.
Aliyun still faces stark competitors such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, but hopes to stand out from opponents by conquering emerging markets like the one in China and aiding the expansion of Chinese based cloud infrastructure into the United States. DT PAI’s primary technology is Aliyun’s Open Data Processing Service (ODPS) platform, which it claims can process 100 petabytes of data in six hours. (A petabyte is equal to about 1,000 terabytes. Aliyun says that 100 petabytes can contain 100 million high-definition videos.) First revealed in 2014,ODPS was created to aid processing of loan application from vendors. The platforms applications extend far beyond the realm of e-commerce, however, with BGI using it sequence genes more efficiently.
Aliyun senior product expert Xiao Wei has said in a press release, “In the past, the field of artificial intelligence was only open to a very small number of qualified developers and required the use of specialized tools. Such an approach was prone to error and redundancy. However, DT PAI allows developers with little or no experience in the field to construct a data application from scratch in a much shorter period of time. What used to take days can be completed within minutes.”
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