What times we’re living in. All of the guff and libertine lifestyles of the very richest has caused corporations to “shoot for the moon”, clearly trying to capitalize on the FUCKING PYRAMID SCHEMES in venture capital land. The biggest company to pursue this is Google, literally changing their name to Alphabet — hoping to investing a BUNCH OF SHIT to find the next Tesla.
Now they have company. Brimming with cash and egos, the exuberant men at Alibaba have a plan — BURN $15 BILLION in the hopes of finding the next Alibaba. At the present, they have 25,000 slave-engineers working under a $3b budget to find something cool. Time to up the ante.
They want FUCKING moonshots.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. will more than double research and development spending to $15 billion over the next three years to develop next-generation technology, drive its sprawling business and explore moonshot projects that could upend industries.
The e-commerce giant plans to set up seven research labs and hire 100 scientists around the world to delve into artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and quantum computing, the company said in an emailed statement. Specific fields include machine learning, visual computing and network security.
The program marks a significant ramp-up in its R&D outlay and is intended to help the $469 billion behemoth keep pace with Amazon.com Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. in potentially industry-changing advancements. It’s in line with ambitions voiced by top policy makers who want China to become a global leader in artificial intelligence.
“The labs will help solve issues that Alibaba is currently facing across its business lines,” Jeff Zhang, Alibaba’s chief technology officer, said in a telephone interview. “It will also be at the forefront of developing next-generation technology.”
The planned investment compares to the $6.4 billion the company spent on R&D over the past three fiscal years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
It’s calling its global research program the Alibaba DAMO Academy– short for Discovery, Adventure, Momentum and Outlook. It will set up labs across China, the U.S., Russia, Israel and Singapore and fund collaborations with universities, including the University of California at Berkeley. And it’s enlisted professors from institutions such as Princeton and Harvard to sit on an advisory board.
More, more, more, MOAR.
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Good luck funding collaborations with the University of California at Berkeley and their marxist snowflakes. Oh, wait…. communist China and marxist Berkeley snowflakes. Never mind… match made in heaven.