Hangzhou, June 27, 2016 － Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, announced the kick-off of its Create@Alibaba Cloud Startup Contest (CACSC) regional events in Europe. The CACSC is part of the Alibaba Cloud’s global startup program, Create@Alibaba Cloud, which was first launched in Singapore in April this year.

The European contests are set to begin in London and Paris on 23 June and 5 July respectively, while other regional contests will be held in South East Asia, Korea, Dubai, Hong Kong and major provinces throughout China later this year. The most promising contestants from each regional event will be invited to attend the world final at the Alibaba Cloud Computing Conference, which will be held in Hangzhou in October 2016.

CACSC is a global entrepreneur contest aimed at championing startups and maximizing their potential through Alibaba’s comprehensive support network and innovative suite of cloud infrastructure services. Businesses are judged on their innovativeness, market potential, profitability and teams.

CACSC provides participants with professional technology training and one-on-one post-sales support to help startups get their businesses up to speed and running smoothly. It also empowers startups with better access to overseas markets and potential connections, which is crucial for those startups looking to expand internationally.

“Alibaba Cloud’s mission is to empower businesses of all sizes and all industries to expand and grow. CACSC is one of the key elements of our Create@Alibaba Cloud program and we are devoted to bringing our expertise to global start-ups through providing access to cloud capabilities from Alibaba Cloud,” said Mr. Sicheng YU, Vice President of Alibaba Group and General Manager of Alibaba Cloud International. “Startups and small enterprises are essential to global innovation and we are excited to see what types of ideas entrepreneurs in Europe put forth during the London and Paris contests, and especially how Alibaba Cloud’s big data and cloud services can help them to achieve their goals.”

A European Hotbed for Technology

Alibaba Cloud chose London as a host city for the CACSC given the capital’s reputation for being a hotbed for technology startups and ideas. As an exciting convergence of high-quality talent, capital, infrastructure and ideas, London enjoys an envied ‘world city’ address providing access to businesses with international reach. Taking place during London Technology Week, CACSC London will be held on 23 June at Huckletree, a London-based co-working space designed for inspiring small businesses and startups, in partnership with London & Partners and Cocoon Networks.

“As the home of more than 40,000 tech businesses, London is now one of the largest tech capitals in Europe with more software developers than Stockholm, Berlin and Dublin combined. The scene for tech startups is thriving and London is one of the best cities to scale and globalize a business. We’re proud to be part of CACSC London and look forward to seeing a local startup take the stage in China in October,” said Gordon Innes, CEO of London & Partners.

Startups from across the UK and the Netherlands have applied to join the CACSC London and compete. Their business ideas come from a range of different industries including e-commerce, Internet of Things, social media and finance.

Opportunity for Global Innovation

Paris has been selected to host the second European regional contest, partnering with Paris & Co, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) and Association des Chinois à l’Etranger pour la Création d’Entreprise (ACECE).

“As the economic development and innovation agency in Paris, our mission is to promote the international attractiveness of Paris. We look forward to seeing more brilliant French startups participate in the Create@Alibaba Cloud Startup Contest Paris and explore the opportunities of the digital economy in China,” said Karine Bidart, Managing Director of Paris & Co.

The French capital is well placed to take advantage of the country’s famous scientific tradition, strong engineering workforce and rigorous education system, all of which are encouraging a new generation of startups and an evolving entrepreneurial culture. More than 500 startups will be participating in CACSC Paris, from a wide variety of industries including multimedia, social media, e-education, tourism tech and robotics.

“China has become a new blue ocean for European startups to expand their businesses, and it represents a huge opportunity with an enormous and unsatisfied consumer market, thirst for technology and a pool of risk taking investors,” said Bo JI, Chief Representative for CKGSB Europe.

More information about the Create@Alibaba Cloud Startup Contest can be found at https://intl.aliyun.com/startup

About Alibaba Cloud

Established in September 2009, Alibaba Cloud (intl.aliyun.com), Alibaba Group’s cloud computing arm, develops highly scalable platforms for cloud computing and data management. It provides a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services to support participants of Alibaba Group’s online and mobile commerce ecosystem, including sellers and other third-party customers and businesses. Alibaba Cloud is a business within Alibaba Group.

Above Photo: Dr. Jingren ZHOU, Vice President of Alibaba Group, discussed key  trends in big data and cloud computing at Alibaba Technology Forum in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong, June 17, 2016 －Alibaba Group and Hong Kong Polytechnic University hosted a technology forum for nearly 300 students today to discuss key opportunities, trends and challenges in big data and cloud computing. The Technology Forum covered topics including innovations in elastic computing, machine learning and big data development, and how these innovations can address a range of different business needs and challenges.

(From left to right): Dr. Jingren ZHOU, Vice President of Alibaba Group, presented gift to Professor Alex Wai, Vice President (Research Development) of Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Dr. Jingren ZHOU, Vice President of Alibaba Group, presented an overview of Alibaba’s innovative Big Data Computing Platform (BDCP), which consists of a wide range of products and services which enable fast and efficient big data development.

Since its establishment in 2009, Alibaba’s BDCP has expanded its coverage from China to US, Europe, Middle East and South East Asia, with more than 8,000 developers and over 1,500 applications. BDCP’s technology not only supports Alibaba’s internal businesses but also provides services to enterprise customers worldwide.

Dr. Zhou also demonstrated how BDCP utilizes data visualization, making it useful for a wide variety of industries, including transportation, healthcare, water conservancy and human gene analysis.

“Alibaba Cloud’s big data and cloud computing technologies are not only contributing an enormous amount to the ongoing development of the wider technology industry, but also empowering enterprises in various sectors such as finance, energy, gaming, entertainment, healthcare and education. Today’s forum allows us to showcase these world-class tools to help inspire students to become the technology leaders of tomorrow,” said Dr. Zhou. “To us, supporting future talent is as important as growing the cloud computing ecosystem, and we’re delighted to be doing both.”

At the same event, Dr. Wei CHU, Director of Engineering, Alibaba Cloud, introduced the Distributed Machine Learning Platform and its applications – also known as Platform of Artificial Intelligence (PAI). PAI supports customers by providing complete solutions for various business scenarios including advertising, search and finance. Dr. Xianglong HUANG, Director of Engineering, Alibaba Cloud, shared his insights on the evolving virtualization techniques in elastic computing and the future roadmap for helping more enterprise users. In addition, Dr. Qian Zhengping, Staff Engineer of Alibaba Cloud, shared the latest development of real-time computing, and how it facilitates increasing demand for applications such as online payment and traffic monitoring.

This event is part of the Alibaba Technology Forum (ATF), which is an annual event organized by Alibaba Group. Previous editions of the Alibaba Technology Forum (ATF) have been held at Stanford University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Peking University and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

About Alibaba Cloud
Established in September 2009, Alibaba Cloud (intl.aliyun.com), Alibaba Group’s cloud computing arm, develops highly scalable platforms for cloud computing and data management. It provides a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services to support participants of Alibaba Group’s online and mobile commerce ecosystem, including sellers and other third-party customers and businesses. Alibaba Cloud is a business within Alibaba Group.