{"id":26617,"date":"2022-12-30T01:10:22","date_gmt":"2022-12-30T01:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/30\/alibaba-ceo-daniel-zhang-takes-charge-of-cloud-infrastructure-business\/"},"modified":"2022-12-30T01:10:22","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T01:10:22","slug":"alibaba-ceo-daniel-zhang-takes-charge-of-cloud-infrastructure-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/30\/alibaba-ceo-daniel-zhang-takes-charge-of-cloud-infrastructure-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang takes charge of cloud infrastructure business"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.<\/a>\u00a0Chief Executive Officer Daniel Zhang Yong (pictured) announced today that he will directly oversee the company\u2019s cloud computing business unit going forward, as it gears up for \u201caggressive development.\u201d<\/p>\n

The change was announced as part of an annual leadership reshuffle at Alibaba. In an internal email<\/a> sent to employees that was seen by the South China Morning Post, Zhang said he has assumed the post of acting president of Alibaba Cloud<\/a> and also the company\u2019s work collaboration tool DingTalk.<\/p>\n

Zhang assumes the new role from Jeff Zhang, who will henceforth lead Alibaba\u2019s research institute, known as DAMO Academy. He also remains leader of Alibaba\u2019s semiconductor development team and \u201cinternet of things\u201d projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past four years, Jeff has led the Alibaba Cloud Intelligence team to deliver outstanding results in technological innovation and industry influence,\u201d Zhang said in the email.<\/p>\n

Other changes see DAMO Academy\u2019s deputy head Jingren Zhou become Alibaba Cloud Intelligence\u2019s new chief technology officer, in addition to his current role. Meanwhile, Zeming Wu, former CTO of Alibaba\u2019s local services business, has succeeded Li Cheng as CTO of Alibaba Group. Cheng, who has not been given a new position, will continue to work with CEO Zhang in a technology advisory role, the email revealed.<\/p>\n

With Zhang giving himself a more hands-on role at Alibaba Cloud, it seems clear that the CEO is placing a higher priority on the company\u2019s cloud computing business. For now, cloud accounts for only a small portion of retail giant Alibaba\u2019s overall revenue, but its management sees it as one of its major growth drivers.<\/p>\n

Alibaba Cloud is certainly well-placed to grow. According to Gartner Inc., it is the world\u2019s third-largest cloud computing provider behind Amazon Web Services Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Analysts say that\u2019s because of Alibaba Cloud\u2019s strength in the domestic Chinese market, but in recent years it has been looking to expand outside China, adding new data centers<\/a> in countries like Japan, Singapore and Thailand.<\/p>\n

Domestically, Alibaba Cloud is also under pressure in China from rivals such as Tencent Corp., Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and Tianyi, the cloud computing arm of China Telecom Corp. Ltd. Given the pressure it faces at home and its desire to expand abroad, Alibaba Cloud in September announced it would invest $1 billion over the next three years to support customers.<\/p>\n

In the email, Zhang said Alibaba Cloud will pursue \u201caggressive development\u201d over the next year. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t be more sure that development is the top priority, because it can solve the problems we face,\u201d the CEO said. \u201c2023 will be a critical year to seize the growth opportunities, all Alibaba employees should carry the enterprising spirit to gather strength and forge ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The leadership reshuffle comes just days after Alibaba Cloud suffered one of its worst-ever outages<\/a>, when its Hong Kong servers went offline for several hours Dec. 19 and 20. The outage reportedly forced the cryptocurrency exchange OKX to suspend withdrawals, while the Monetary Authority of Macau\u2019s website was taken offline.<\/p>\n

Photo: World Economic Forum\/Flickr<\/a><\/h5>\n
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