Alibaba to open Academy of Discovery, Adventure Momentum and Outlook; invest $15bn in research & development

Alibaba is launching a new research institute called the “Academy for Discovery, Adventure, Momentum and Outlook,” or DAMO, which will include seven new research labs in China, the US, Russia, Israel and Singapore.

In addition, the company will commit $15bn to research and development over the next three years, which is almost double its average annual expend.

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For example, in FY2017, the company spent a total of $2.6bn on product development.

DAMO’s research will involve topics such as the Internet of Things, quantum computing, Fintech, human-machine interaction, network security and natural language processing.

It is hoped Big Data and AI will become part of Alibaba’s cloud service offering.

The Academy will include internal research teams at Alibaba and it hopes to recruit around 100 researchers from various countries to develop new technology Alibaba can use in its business.

It also hopes to partner with Universities on specific projects. DAMO has its own academic advisory board including professors from Harvard, Princeton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Washington, Beijing Institute of Technology, Columbia, Berkeley, Peking University and Zhejiang University.

The firm already has its own AI lab which was opened in July.