This week, the AEF NextGen Fund, a new $150 million initiative from the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, aims to accelerate AI-powered startups across sectors like healthcare and financial services. With a focus on sustainability and global scaling, this fund strengthens Alibaba’s commitment to fostering innovation in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area.
In parallel, the 2024 Qingcheng Award honored 15 young Chinese scientists for their exceptional AI-driven research. Their work spans fields like environmental science and mental health, demonstrating the growing importance of AI in solving complex global challenges.
On the tech front, Alibaba Cloud’s Baidian platform introduced real-time audio and video interaction capabilities, allowing businesses to quickly create multimodal AI applications without coding. This marks a significant leap in AI development, empowering businesses to build advanced solutions in minutes.
Finally, Alibaba Cloud continues to lead globally in AI and large models, with its Tongyi model family supporting over 300,000 enterprises. As AI drives industry growth, Alibaba remains a key enabler of innovation, helping companies harness the power of next-generation technology.
Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund Launches $150M AEF NextGen Fund to Accelerate AI Innovation
The Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund (AEF) has launched the AEF NextGen Fund, a $150 million venture fund focused on AI-powered startups. Managed by NextGen Partners, the fund will invest in growth-stage companies across sectors, including Financial Services, Consumer Retail, Healthcare, Construction, and Arts & Entertainment, with a particular emphasis on AI applications.
The fund aims to support startups with a proven product-market fit, providing capital and expertise to help them scale globally. In addition to seeking financial returns, the fund prioritizes sustainability and socially responsible growth.
AEF, celebrating its 10th anniversary, has invested over $100 million in over 80 startups since its inception, contributing to developing the startup ecosystem in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area (GBA). The AEF NextGen Fund will leverage Alibaba’s ecosystem and global network to enhance commercialization opportunities for portfolio companies.
2024 Qingcheng Award Recognizes 15 Young Chinese Scientists
The 2024 Qingcheng Award honored 15 young Chinese scientists with a million-yuan grant each for their groundbreaking work in AI and interdisciplinary research. With an average age of 34, the winners made significant contributions in fields such as AI-driven environmental science, emotional computing, and cryosphere studies. Over 60% of the recipients incorporated AI into their research, reflecting the growing trend of “AI for Science”.
Li Dongfeng from Peking University developed an AI-based model for tracking river sediment dynamics on the Tibetan Plateau. At the same time, Liu Shuang from Tianjin University applied AI to improve the diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders like depression.
The Qingcheng Award, founded by Alibaba DAMO Academy, recognizes young scholars under 35 and encourages scientific innovation. This year’s event saw increased participation and the introduction of new fields, including agronomy and atmospheric science.
Alibaba Cloud Baidian Launches Real-Time Audio and Video Interaction Features
Alibaba Cloud’s Baidian platform has launched new real-time audio and video interaction capabilities, allowing users to create custom multimodal AI applications in minutes without coding easily. Users can build AI assistants that can listen, see, and speak by selecting from over 200 models, including text, voice, and visual understanding. These applications can be integrated into web, iOS, and Android apps, with potential use cases in virtual assistants, companions, and AI teachers.
In the past year, large models have evolved from text-based to multimodal systems, expanding the possibilities for AI applications. Baidian provides access to over 200 models, such as the Qwen language models, Qwen2-VL for visual understanding, and CosyVoice for speech synthesis. The platform also supports features like RAG knowledge base creation, prompt tuning, and SDK integration, offering a seamless workflow for developing sophisticated AI solutions.
Alibaba Cloud Leads in AI and Large Model Capabilities
Alibaba Cloud has been recognized as a global leader in AI and large model products, topping multiple industry rankings. According to Gartner, Alibaba Cloud was the only Chinese company in the Challengers quadrant for Cloud AI Development, Data Science, and AI Code Assistants. It was the only Chinese provider in the banking product and service innovation maturity curve.
In generative AI, Alibaba Cloud was named an Emerging Leader in all categories of the Generative AI Technology Innovation Guide, and ranked first globally in the “Features” dimension for AI model providers.
The company also leads in China’s intelligent customer service market and ranks first in IDC’s Generative AI IaaS public cloud market. Forrester and Omdia reports ranked Alibaba Cloud second globally in strategic and product capabilities.
Alibaba Cloud continues to drive innovation with its Tongyi large model family, which now covers language, image, video, and audio modalities. Over 300,000 enterprises, including FAW, Lenovo, and Ctrip, have adopted Tongyi models, helping drive strong growth in AI-related revenues.
