Jeff Zhang, who is also president of Alibaba Group's China Retail Markeplaces, speaks during the Tmall Apparel Strategic Cooperation Conference in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, last year. (Photo : Getty Images)
China's e-commerce titan Alibaba aims to spread its presence in a wide range of businesses and technologies, its chief technology officer, Jianfeng "Jeff" Zhang, told participants at the Alibaba Technology Forum in Bellevue on Saturday, Aug. 6, Seattle Times reported.
Best known in the U.S. as one of the world's largest e-commerce companies and a rival to Amazon.com, Alibaba is also one of the best big-data companies in the world, Zhang said, adding that the amount of data it generates extends from social media to financing and payment to digital entertainment.
"That's our competitive edge compared to other technology companies," Zhang told a crowd of about 300 engineers at the Westin Bellevue.
He added that Alibaba handles different kinds of data from various sources that include Alibaba Group's own e-commerce platforms (including the Taobao consumer-to-consumer shopping site and TMall business-to-consumer site) and companies that it has invested in such as microblogging site Sina Weibo and Ant Financial.
"We possess all these data from our ecosystem," Zhang added. "It's rich and diverse."
It was the first time that Zhang had visited the place and spoken to engineers in Seattle on the technologies that Alibaba uses.
Alibaba had relocated its local office from Seattle to Bellevue last fall, where its 40 engineers now work on various projects involving different platforms, a spokesperson said.
In an interview before his speech, Zhang said that the company has no plans to add or reduce its workforce in Seattle but was only there to talk about the company's business and technology needs.
Last year, the company reportedly earned $15.7 billion and $11 billion in profit. In comparison, Amazon has a high net sale of $107 billion but with low profit of $596 million. However, unlike Amazon, Alibaba is a direct seller and also hosts third-party merchants on its sites.
The Chinese e-commerce giant has a range of investments and uses its Yun-OS operating system. It is also trying to provide cloud infrastructure to businesses with Aliyun, the Alibaba Cloud.
Zhang said during that interview that the company has no plans yet on expanding its cloud efforts but they are currently focused on Chinese businesses. He added that for Alibaba, the top technology priority is data processing and analytics.
The tech chief said that the company's data-processing systems are used to monitor and screen for counterfeits. He added that data on irregular behaviour will help track counterfeit activities on their platform.
Zhang said the company is also looking into augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR), voice recognition and artificial intelligence.
"Our strategy encompasses a wide range of fields. It's way beyond traditional e-commerce," Zhang said. "We're still exploring and there's no clear answer. In the end, it will depend on which company can leverage it to achieve scale," he added.
