Joe Tsai, chairman of Alibaba Group, spoke at length at JPMorgan's 2015 annual meeting about the value and opportunities brought by artificial intelligence.Number The annual World-China Summit will be held in May.
More than 2,700 delegates from 1,300 companies across 33 markets gathered at the conference in Shanghai to explore business insights across technology, healthcare, renewable energy and more.
AI was at the center of discussion during Tsai Ing-wen's speech.
“AI is such an important field that you can't just go down one path,” Tsai said, standing on stage opposite Kam Sing Kwan, JPMorgan's chairman for North Asia and vice chairman for Greater China investment banking.
“We are the only company [in China] “We are a company that runs a leading cloud business and is competitive in AI,” he added. “The combination of AI and cloud is key.”
During his 30-minute conversation with Kwan, Tsai explained how AI is driving the growth of the company he co-founded 25 years ago, including Alibaba's core e-commerce business and cloud division.
“We see so many benefits to AI, that's why we're committed to it.”
Watch the full interview above, and read key quotes, edited for clarity, below.
Important Quotes
“As an ordinary person [looking] Understanding AI is like educating a child: you put them through middle school, high school, college, and eventually a PhD. When people compare LLMs and say, “mine is better than yours,” they're really saying, “My kid has three PhDs and is well-versed in biology, mathematics, and psychology.”
“As a technology company and technology pioneers, we believe that machine intelligence will continue to advance and machines will become smarter.”
“Being able to apply AI to a variety of vertical applications is important to us. When you look at the use cases in e-commerce, it's amazing.”
“Anyone who uses our AI has to use cloud computing power. If you use open source AI within our community, you also need computing power. This is how we grow our cloud computing revenue.”
“AI is such an important field that you can't just go down one path. It reminds me of a Yogi Berra quote. He said, 'When you see the path, take it.'”
“Alibaba is a growth-driven company. We are an innovation-driven company. We apply technology to our core business to create value for our customers and ultimately our shareholders. To compete, you need to be growth-driven. That's what we're all about.”
DiscoveryEmerging Technology News
