Alibaba Cloud Unveils New AI Models and Enhanced Infrastructure to Empower Customers and Partners

Alibaba Cloud Empowers Customers and Partners with its Proven Large Models and High-Performance Infrastructure

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Established in 2009, Alibaba Cloud (www.alibabacloud.com) 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.

Alibaba Cloud Empowers Customers and Partners with its Proven Large Models and High-Performance Infrastructure

Global Cloud Leader Collaborates with NVIDIA, XPENG, miHoYo, Atlas, Codium, UNESCO-ICHEI to Drive the Future of Mobility, Gaming, Travel, IT and Education HANGZHOU, CHINA - Media OutReach Newswire - 20 September 2024 - Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, today announced at its annual flagship event Apsara Conference that its proprietary foundational model Tongyi has attracted over 300,000 customers via its generative AI platform, Model Studio, a significant jump from 90,000 revealed in May. Leveraging Alibaba Cloud's Tongyi large models and its scalable global cloud infrastructure, businesses across automobile, gaming, travel, IT sectors have delivered enhanced customer experience and developed innovative solutions. Alibaba Cloud also unveiled a partnership with the International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNSECO (UNESCO-ICHEI) to bring the benefits of generative AI to higher education institutes through digital training initiatives. "Our collaborations with industry-leading organizations demonstrate our dedication to delivering enhanced customer experiences and boosting enterprise efficiency through innovative solutions. Together with our partners, we want to empower more businesses and individuals to unlock the potential of generative AI through digital training and accessible cloud solutions," said Jingren Zhou, CTO of Alibaba Cloud. Driving the Future of Mobility and Smart Cockpits with LLMs Built on NVIDIA Alibaba Cloud today unveiled its large multimodal model (LMM) solution designed for automotive applications and co-developed with NVIDIA and Banma, Alibaba's intelligent cockpit solution provider. This solution, which will be made available to China-based automakers, aims to deliver a more interactive experience for car owners and redefine the smart mobility journey. Through this collaboration, Alibaba Cloud's portfolio of proprietary large language model Qwen -- including the Qwen2-7B language model and the Qwen2-VL vision language model -- have been seamlessly integrated with the NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Orin™ platform for autonomous vehicles. Additionally, NVIDIA's model acceleration technology has significantly reduced computational costs and minimized latency in Alibaba Cloud models' real-time processing of complex tasks. This ensures a smooth and uninterrupted intelligent experience for both drivers and passengers. This initiative marks the first integration of Alibaba's large models into NVIDIA's automotive platform. Leveraging Qwen's advanced capabilities in handling complex inquiries and processing visual intelligence, in-car voice assistants will be able to engage in dynamic, multi-turn conversations and even offer recommendations, ranging from providing information about nearby landmarks to proactively suggesting car headlights be turned on during snowy conditions. As part of the LMM solution, Alibaba Cloud's Mobile Agent -- a multimodal AI agent for edge devices -- will expand the capabilities of in-car voice assistants. Utilizing the Mobile Agent's strengths in complex task planning, self-reflection, and decision-making, users will be able to effortlessly execute voice commands, such as ordering milkshakes through a food delivery app, resulting in richer and more enjoyable in-car experiences. Looking ahead, Alibaba Cloud plans to work with NVIDIA to adapt Qwen models on NVIDIA DRIVE Thor, NVIDIA's next-generation centralized car compute platform that combines advanced driver assistance, autonomous driving, and AI cockpit capabilities into a single safe and secure system. Partnering with XPENG to Enhance Smart Cockpit Experience XPENG, a leading Chinese smart electric vehicle company, is leveraging Alibaba Cloud's AI models and robust cloud computing capabilities to redefine its smart cockpit and autonomous driving experience. It has tapped into Alibaba Cloud's Qwen to enhance its AI voice assistant, Xiao P, for a more superior smart cockpit experience. With no specific instructions needed, the LLM-enabled voice assistant excels at understanding complex conversational contexts and user intentions. It can engage in natural and intuitive dialogues with both drivers and passengers. For instance, when a user simply states, "It's cold inside the car," the voice assistant automatically adjusts the vehicle's temperature. In addition to utilizing Qwen for the smart cockpit, XPENG is collaborating with Alibaba Cloud to integrate large models for various innovations. Users can design custom stickers for their car's exterior through Alibaba Cloud's text-to-image model, Tongyi Wanxiang, within XPENG's mobile app. XPENG is also exploring the use of Alibaba Cloud's Tongyi Lingma, an AI coding assistant powered by Qwen, to enhance R&D efficiency in the latest automotive technologies. Alibaba Cloud also offers robust and resilient computing resources to help XPENG accelerate its training of large model for autonomous driving. Powering Immersive and Scalable Gaming Experience for miHoYo As a long-term partner, Alibaba Cloud has provided its cloud infrastructure support for miHoYo in launching its latest game Zenless Zone Zero, a new urban fantasy action role-playing game (ARPG) which received nearly 50 million pre-beta registrations, posting high demands on system stability and smooth access to the games' reservation website. With Alibaba Cloud's infrastructure and comprehensive product suite, Zenless Zone Zero has successfully addressed challenges in high server load, large volume of game data processing, and strong demand on platform stability, providing a smooth experience for players who logged in simultaneously on the day of its grand launch on July 4. The game has reached 50 million downloads within the first week since launched. Building A Strong Digital Foundation for Southeast Asia Atlas, an innovative B2B travel technology provider in Singapore, has leveraged Alibaba Cloud's infrastructure, machine learning and AI architecture innovations to serve over 50 global travel sellers and 150 low-cost airlines around the world. Alibaba Cloud's LLM Qwen and Model Studio platform also support Atlas' digital chatbot, providing customer support around the clock, addressing partner inquiries regarding booking procedures and payment options. Since collaborating with Alibaba Cloud in 2021, Atlas has reduced operational expenses by 45%. Alibaba Cloud has aided Atlas in transitioning from a startup in Singapore to becoming one of the leading industry players, revolutionizing the low-cost flight industry with its innovative travel platform. Additionally, Codium, a prominent software company in Thailand specializing in digital workplace solutions, has partnered with Alibaba Cloud to utilize its scalable cloud infrastructure and reliable solutions. The partnership aims to establish a strong digital foundation for businesses in Thailand and improve the Thai cloud market ecosystem by offering accessible cloud services and providing comprehensive local support and expertise to Thai clients. Empowering the Future of Education with UNSECO During Apsara Conference 2024, Alibaba Cloud signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with UNESCO-ICHEI to launch the GenAI and Cloud Micro-Certification online program for global learners. The program targets educators and students in higher education institutes including universities and colleges across Asia and Africa. The program, featuring 6 courses, is designed to deliver the fundamental knowledge and applications of generative AI and cloud computing technologies with easily understandable graphics and best practices of integrating generative AI into teaching activities to make learning more engaging, personalized, and efficient. After completing each course session, educators and students can take an exam to obtain a micro certification jointly issued by both UNESCO-ICHEI and Alibaba Cloud. With the gradual rollout of the program, the initiative aims to benefit around 12,000 educators and students globally by the end of 2025. 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. Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba Cloud Unveils New AI Models and Revamped Infrastructure for AI Computing

Cloud Leader Unveils 100 Open-sourced Qwen 2.5 Multimodal Models and New Text-to-Video AI Model to Bring Visual Creations to a Higher Level Revamped Cloud Infrastructure is Introduced to Maximize Values for Customers HANGZHOU, CHINA - Media OutReach Newswire - 19 September 2024 - Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, today announced it has released over 100 of its newly-launched large language models, Qwen 2.5, to the global open-source community. This significant contribution was revealed at the Apsara Conference, its annual flagship event. In addition, Alibaba Cloud has unveiled a revamped full-stack infrastructure designed to meet the growing demands for robust AI computing. This new infrastructure includes innovative cloud products and services that enhance computing, networking, and data center architecture, all aimed at supporting the thriving development and wide-range applications of AI models. "Alibaba Cloud is investing, with unprecedented intensity, in the research and development of AI technology and the building of its global infrastructure. We aim to establish an AI infrastructure of the future to serve our global customers and unlock their business potential," said Eddie Wu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. 100 Open-sourced Models Unveiled The newly released open-source Qwen 2.5 models, ranging from 0.5 to 72 billion parameters in size, feature enhanced knowledge and stronger capabilities in math and coding and are able to support over 29 languages, catering to a wide array of AI applications both at the edge or in the cloud across various sectors from automobile, gaming to science research. The Qwen model series, Alibaba Cloud's portfolio of proprietary large language models, has achieved remarkable traction since its debut in April 2023. To date, the Qwen models have surpassed 40 million downloads across platforms such as Hugging Face and ModelScope, an open-source community initiative by Alibaba. Furthermore, these models have inspired the creation of over 50,000 models on Hugging Face. The Qwen 2.5 release will see over 100 models being made open-source. This extensive range includes base models, instruct models, and quantized models of various precision levels and methods, spanning different modalities such as language, audio, and vision, along with specialized code and mathematical models. "Today marks a significant milestone as we launch our most expansive open-source initiative to date," said Jingren Zhou, Chief Technology Officer of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. "This initiative is set to empower developers and corporations of all sizes, enhancing their ability to leverage AI technologies and further stimulating the growth of the open-source community. We remain committed to investing in advanced AI infrastructure to foster the widespread adoption of generative AI technologies across different industries." Alibaba Cloud also announced an upgrade to its proprietary flagship model Qwen-Max. The enhanced Qwen-Max model demonstrates performance on par with other state-of-the-art models in areas such as language comprehension and reasoning, math, and coding. Expanding the Frontier in Multimodal In addition to its extensive suite of large language models, Alibaba Cloud also unveiled a new text-to-video model as part of its image generator, Tongyi Wanxiang large model family. The new model is capable of generating high-quality videos in a wide variety of visual styles from realistic scenes to 3D animation. The model can generate videos based on Chinese and English text instruction and transform static images into dynamic videos. The model features advanced diffusion transformer (DiT) architecture to enhance video reconstruction quality. The cloud leader is also deploying a significant update to its vision language model with the introduction of Qwen2-VL, capable of comprehending videos lasting over 20 minutes and support video-based question-answering. Equipped with sophisticated reasoning and decision-making capabilities, Qwen2-VL is designed for integration into mobile phones, automobiles and robots, facilitating the automation of specific operations. For computer programming, Alibaba Cloud has also launched an AI Developer, a Qwen-powered AI assistant designed to support programmers automate tasks such as requirement analysis, code programming and identifying and fixing software bugs. This enables developers to concentrate more on essential duties and further their skills. A Full-Stack AI Infrastructure Upgrade The cloud pioneer has also announced a slew of innovative updates to its full-stack AI infrastructure covering green datacenter architecture, data management, model training and inferencing: Next-Gen Data Center Architecture for Surging AI Development: To meet the increasing and diverse demand for high-performance computing power driven by the global AI boom, Alibaba Cloud has revealed its next-generation data center architecture, CUBE DC 5.0. The new CUBE architecture increases energy and operational efficiency with a set of advanced and proprietary technologies such as wind-liquid hybrid cooling system, all-direct current power distribution architecture and smart management system and reduces deployment times by up to 50% compared to traditional data center builds through prefabricated modular designs. Open Lake Solution to Maximize Data Utility: As organizations face challenges in managing vast amounts of data amidst the growing demand for generative AI, Alibaba Cloud introduces Alibaba Cloud Open Lake which can seamlessly integrate big data engines into a unified solution, maximizing data utility especially for generative AI applications. By integrating workflows, performance optimization, and robust governance in a single platform, it achieves efficient resource usage through compute-storage separation, clear data governance, and significant cost and time savings. AI Scheduler with Integrated Model Training and Inference: Alibaba Cloud has launched PAI AI Scheduler with integrated model training and inference, a proprietary cloud-native scheduling engine designed to enhance computing resource management. Through utilizing intelligent integration of diverse computing resources, flexible resource scheduling, real-time tasks adjustments, and automatic fault recovery, it can achieve over 90% of effective compute utilization rate. DMS for Unified Management of Metadata: To help organizations efficiently manage their data and unleash values, Alibaba Cloud introduced DMS: OneMeta+OneOps, a platform that enables a unified management of over 40 types of data sources in database, data warehouse, and data lake across multiple cloud environments. The platform will boost data utilization rate by 10 times, significantly enhancing the efficiency of transforming data into valuable intelligence. More Powerful Elastic Compute Service: Alibaba Cloud also introduced the 9th Generation Enterprise Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance during the conference. The latest generation of ECS instances has notable performance enhancements, including a 30% increase in search recommendation speed and a 17% improvement in the effectiveness of reading and writing Queries Per Second (QPS) when applying to database products compared to the previous generation. These updates are designed to provide more comprehensive support for customers and partners to maximize the benefits of the latest technology has to offer for building even more efficient, sustainable and inclusive AI applications. 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. Alibaba Cloud