Alibaba Disruptive Tech Unit Axes 30% Staff; Alibaba Focuses On Carbon Neutrality

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's BABA DAMO Academy has gone ahead with a plan to cut a third of its workforce, the Pandaily reports.

In the past six months, several experts quit DAMO Academy. In November 2021, Qi Yuan, former VP of Alibaba fintech affiliate Ant Group and Chief Scientist of Ant Group's AI division, joined Fudan University. 

In January 2022, Wang Gang, VP of Alibaba and director of Autonomous Driving Lab in Alibaba DAMO Academy, quit.

Also Read: Alibaba Looks To Slash Workforce By 30% After Its MMC Division Decides To Lay off 20% Employees

Alibaba officially announced the establishment of DAMO Academy in 2017 and looked to invest over 100 billion yuan ($15.6 billion) in basic science and disruptive technological innovation research over the next three years.

Alibaba aimed to become the world's fifth-largest economy by creating 100 million jobs worldwide, serving 2 billion people, and maintaining a profitable platform for 10 million companies.

According to Alibaba's latest financial report, the company generated 86% of the revenue from its e-commerce business, 9% from Alibaba Cloud, 4% from Alibaba Cultural Entertainment, and only 1% from high-tech areas, including the DAMO Academy.

Alibaba is working to spotlight more sustainable products on the company's e-commerce platform as China strives to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, the Pandaily reports.

Alibaba's Tmall is piloting allows consumers to identify eco-friendly products on the e-commerce platform and informs them of the carbon emissions they could save by purchasing certain products. 

Alibaba also built green footprint accounts for merchants and consumers to accumulate "green points" by following the suitable low-carbon standard.

During the "11.11 Shopping Festival" in 2021, Alibaba reduced computing resources by 50% during peak time through its cloud-native technologies. 

In 2022, Alibaba's cloud-based broadcast distribution system saw a nearly 40% reduction of onsite broadcast personnel compared to the last Winter Olympics.

Price Action: BABA shares traded lower by 1.77% at $87.83 on the last check Thursday.

photo via Wikimedia Commons