The investment is said to reach USD 15 billion in the quest of development of ecommerce, logistics and cloud technology.
Since 2016, Alibaba has invested roughly USD 2 billion to acquire a majority stake in Lazada, creating a network of ecommerce hubs across Southeast Asia in partnership with payment affiliate Ant Financial.
It has also pursued a 1.2 billion bid for US money transfer service MoneyGram, in a pending deal that has come under scrutiny from critics who say it poses a national security threat.Along with an existing data science research lab in California, Alibaba has opened new data centers in Europe, the US, the Middle East, Australia, Japan, India and Indonesia since 2016, in a bid to boost its cloud business.
Beijing prioritizes state funding in quantum computing, AI and big data, urging provincial governments, universities, the military and private firms to play a bigger role in developing advanced technology in areas where China trails developed countries.
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