Alibaba’s Damo Academy Is 1 Of China’s National Efforts To Boost Tech Innovation

(CTN News) – Damo Academy, the in-house research initiative of Alibaba Group, is offering open access to its proprietary technology, in the Chinese tech giant’s latest move to share the fruit of its development in the field.

According to Damo’s WeChat account, the academy is providing free access to 100 patents that cover a wide range of AI applications, including image processing, video technology and 3D visualization.

According to Damo, the initiative was designed to provide small and medium-sized businesses with access to AI technology at a significantly reduced cost during a time of rapid technological advancement.

Additionally, Alibaba’s patent licences will be included in a national patent list published by the Intellectual Property Exchange Centre of the eastern province of Zhejiang, where Alibaba’s headquarters are located.

According to Chinese media reports, the national patent scheme involves dozens of universities and research institutions providing small businesses with access to over 6,800 patents for a fee of 50,000 yuan or less each year, aimed at stimulating technological innovation in the country.

It comes amid an escalating US investment and export ban on advanced technology, with China stepping up its efforts to drive AI development.

Earlier this week, Vice President Joe Biden announced a long-anticipated executive order restricting American investments in semiconductors, microelectronics, quantum technology, and artificial intelligence in China.

Based on research and development analytics firm PatSnap, China filed 648,500 AI patent applications between 2018 and 2022, representing 62 percent of the world’s total.

Approximately 191,000 patent applications were filed in the US, while 52,800 were filed in South Korea.

Three of the 100 free patents relate to precision cancer treatment, which could benefit hospitals by offering intelligent solutions, and accelerate the transformation of technology.

Several other patents relate to traffic signal perception, as well as to image identification technology applicable to e-commerce platforms looking to weed out counterfeit products.

Toward the establishment of a “more open AI technology ecosystem”, the academy plans to open up more patents in the future.

Damo was founded in 2017 by Alibaba, the owner of the South China Morning Post, to focus on fundamental science and disruptive innovations.

There are 16 laboratories at this institution, covering a wide range of topics from artificial intelligence and autonomous driving to quantum computing and semiconductor research.

Earlier this year, Alibaba’s cloud unit revealed Tongyi Qianwen, which is based on Damo’s large language models (LLMs), making it one of the first Chinese companies to develop artificial intelligence chatbots.

Analysts believe Alibaba’s cloud computing unit is seeking to expand its global influence in the field of artificial intelligence by open sourcing two of its LLM models based on Tongyi Qianwen last week.

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