In the rapidly developing field of AI, talent has become a key resource for competition among enterprises.

Author: Huang Xinyi, Caixin AI Daily

Image source: Generated by Wujie AI

On Thursday, both the Apple and Google app stores lifted the download restrictions on TikTok and re-listed the app. A few weeks ago, both platforms had removed TikTok in accordance with relevant U.S. bans. Following the global success of DeepSeek, domestic internet and tech giants have accelerated their competition for AI talent. After moves by Xiaomi and ByteDance, the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" learned that Alibaba's AI To C business has recently launched a large-scale recruitment drive, with hundreds of open positions focused on product and technology development related to AI large models.

Recently, Alibaba has been active in AI and cloud computing. After confirming a collaboration with Apple on mobile AI, Jack Ma has also made several public appearances, including a visit to the office area of the Quark team within Alibaba's Intelligent Information Business Group last week, and attending a private enterprise symposium in Beijing on February 17.

It is reported that Alibaba's external recruitment has reached hundreds of positions, with AI technology and product development roles accounting for 90%. These positions are mainly distributed in AI product and technology development, focusing on cutting-edge technologies and applications related to text, multimodal large models, AI Agents, and more.

Xiaomi, ByteDance, and Alibaba Engage in AI Talent War

In the rapidly developing field of AI, talent has become a key resource for competition among enterprises. Recently, Xiaomi's poaching of DeepSeek's genius young talent Luo Fuli has attracted widespread attention. Luo Fuli, a post-95 AI star, graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science from Beijing Normal University and pursued a master's degree in computational linguistics at Peking University. Her academic achievements are remarkable, having published eight papers at the international top conference ACL, two of which as the first author, with her proposed word sense disambiguation method and text style transfer framework causing a stir in the industry.

Just yesterday, ByteDance also confirmed to the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" reporter that Wu Yonghui, a "Google Fellow" who worked at Google for 17 years, has left Google and officially joined ByteDance. Wu Yonghui will serve as the head of basic research for the large model team at ByteDance, focusing on foundational research exploration of large models and long-term research explorations such as AI for science, reporting to ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo.

Despite lacking advantages in funding and talent, DeepSeek has achieved a global sensation, shaking all major companies. Liang Rubo stated at ByteDance's latest all-hands meeting that one of the innovations of DeepSeek R1, the long-chain thinking model, is not an industry first. After OpenAI released the long-chain thinking model in September last year, becoming a hot topic in the industry, ByteDance realized the significant technological changes but felt they were not quick enough to follow up. He proposed a key goal for 2025: to pursue the upper limit of "intelligence."

In contrast, Alibaba has been aggressive in attracting AI talent. In early February, top global AI scientist and former Salesforce Group Vice President Xu Zhuhong was appointed Vice President of Alibaba Group, responsible for foundational research and application solutions related to multimodal foundational models and Agents in the AI To C business. Insiders revealed that Xu Zhuhong is currently preparing a top-tier AI large model research team of over 100 people to drive the transformation of cutting-edge research results into practical application solutions.

Alibaba has been laying out its AI strategy for many years, but it has mainly focused on B-end business. The Q3 2024 financial report shows that Alibaba Cloud's overall revenue reached 29.61 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of over 7%, with adjusted EBITA profit reaching 2.661 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 89%. Alibaba Cloud's performance was driven by double-digit growth in public cloud business, including an increase in the adoption of AI-related products, with AI-related product revenue achieving triple-digit year-on-year growth for five consecutive quarters.

Since the end of last year, Alibaba has been focusing on its AI To C business, integrating its AI application "Tongyi" into Alibaba's Intelligent Information Business Group, which is tasked with the responsibility of Alibaba's AI To C. Just last week, Alibaba founder Jack Ma appeared in the Quark office area to greet and communicate with employees.

Under the "AI-Driven" Strategy, Alibaba Fully Embraces Technology from E-commerce

Recently, Alibaba also confirmed its collaboration with Apple to develop new AI features for Apple's iPhone users in China. In addition to mobile phones, Alibaba is also promoting the implementation of the Tongyi series large models in AI glasses, including signing a contract with consumer-grade AR brand RayNeo to provide exclusive customized technical support for its AI glasses. The Tmall Genie team is also collaborating with the Quark product team to explore new hardware directions such as AI glasses.

In terms of cloud infrastructure, Alibaba Cloud announced today that its Mexico data center is officially operational, marking Alibaba Cloud's first data center in the Latin American region and a significant step into South America. Last May, Alibaba Cloud announced a new round of global infrastructure expansion plans, intending to invest in new data centers in Thailand, Mexico, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South Korea. Currently, Alibaba Cloud covers 87 availability zones across 29 regions worldwide.

On February 20, Alibaba will announce its Q3 fiscal year 2025 results. Morgan Stanley released a report stating that it expects the financial report to mention future capital expenditure plans and public cloud revenue outlook. If Alibaba announces an increase in AI-related investments, it will further enhance the new order expectations for the entire data center industry.

For Alibaba, the collaboration with Apple represents an important business breakthrough since it proposed its "AI-Driven" strategy. Regarding the prospects of Alibaba's cooperation with Apple, Countpoint analysts believe that in the future, Apple may tend to adopt a multi-supplier model in China, introducing more large model service providers. However, as the pioneer of this collaboration, Alibaba will enjoy a certain period of exclusive cooperation. As the market continues to develop, companies like Baidu, ByteDance, and DeepSeek may also become potential suppliers. "We predict that the Apple Intelligence supporting Chinese will be the first non-English version to be officially released by 2025."

Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia Consulting, told the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" that after collaborating with Apple, Alibaba's AI products will have close and direct contact with C-end users and real application scenarios. This has significant value for Alibaba's future business transformation. Additionally, Alibaba is not just an e-commerce platform; it also has a strong ecosystem behind it, such as Gaode and entertainment. If it can resonate with Apple's relevant data, especially in terms of commercial cooperation on data resources, there is enormous potential.

Not only Alibaba, but Ant Group, which shares the same roots as Alibaba, has also been active recently. Recently, recruitment platform information showed that Ant Group is hiring for positions related to embodied intelligent humanoid robot systems and applications. Relevant personnel from Ant Group stated that Ant Group registered the Ant Lingbo Technology Co., Ltd. last year, focusing on embodied intelligent technology and product research and development. "Ant Group is continuously laying out and increasing its investment in AI."

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