Alibaba Cloud rolls out more than 300 AI models via new open source platform

Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology backbone of Alibaba Group Holding, on Thursday launched an open-source Model-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform with more than 300 ready-to-use artificial intelligence (AI) models.

At the company’s cloud unit annual conference that opened Thursday, Alibaba said its ModelScope platform of AI models is available to global developers and researchers. The models cover various fields from computer vision to natural language processing.

The move marks the latest effort by Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post, to tap corporate clients via its cloud service, which recorded the fastest growth among Alibaba’s business segments in the June quarter. The cloud business accounts for 9 per cent of total revenue for the Hangzhou-based group.

Alibaba’s bread-and-butter e-commerce business, conducted through its Taobao and Tmall platforms, is facing stiff competition amid overall consumer spending weakness in China. Alibaba is due to report its September quarter results later this month. Its gross sales in the June quarter barely changed from the same period a year ago.

The new open-source ModelScope aims to make developing and running AI models easier and more cost effective, according to Alibaba.

Developers and researchers can test the models online at no cost, and receive results within minutes. They can also develop customised AI applications by fine-tuning existing models, and run the models online using Alibaba Cloud or deploy them on other cloud platforms, the company added.

“Cloud computing has given rise to a fundamental revolution in the way computing resources are organised, produced and put to commercial use ,” said Jeff Zhang, president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.