Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, and Infocomm Investments Pte Ltd (IIPL) have signed a Memorandum of Intent (MOI) to collaborate and drive technology innovations in Singapore, built upon Alibaba Cloud’s support network and suite of cloud infrastructure services.
The announcement was made at the Create@Alibaba Cloud Start-up Contest (CACSC).
“We are very proud to work with Infocomm Investments to build a more robust start-up ecosystem in Singapore,” said Sicheng Yu, Vice President of Alibaba Group and General Manager of Alibaba Cloud Global. “This underscores our on-going commitment to drive technology innovation in Singapore, as well as to support local start-ups in their business growth through our cloud capabilities and extensive support network in both local and global markets.”
Combining Infocomm Investments’ existing initiatives for local start-ups and technology innovations and Alibaba Cloud's cloud computing expertise and resources, the collaboration will focus on extending sophisticated networking solutions and big-data intelligence to a broader base of Singaporean start-ups under Alibaba Cloud’s first global start-up program, Create@Alibaba Cloud.
Alibaba Cloud will also pave way for start-ups in Singapore to leverage Alibaba Cloud’s ecosystem and to gain access to the China market as well as multiple business network resources and funding opportunities.
In addition, the collaboration will foster innovative exchanges between Singapore and China’s start-up ecosystems by inviting accelerators, incubators, and start-ups in Singapore to participate in start-up activities in China and vice versa. This marks the start of a long term collaboration between both ecosystems to drive innovation.
Dr Alex Lin, Head of Infocomm Investments, affirms this partnership, “This partnership seals the interconnectivity and open exchange benefits, what is also termed as 互联互通 in Chinese, for start-ups looking to the China market and Southeast Asia market through Singapore. It also augments our very vibrant ecosystem where start-ups can tap on Alibaba Cloud for tech support and explore other collaboration opportunities. We look forward to a deeper collaboration with Alibaba for other initiatives in China.”
Create@Alibaba Cloud Start-up Contest (CACSC)
The Create@Alibaba Cloud Start-up Contest (CACSC), organized in partnership with Infocomm Investments, is Alibaba Cloud’s first ever global start-up competition, which is aimed at championing start-ups and maximizing their potential. It is part of Alibaba Cloud’s global start-up program “Create@Alibaba Cloud”, which was launched in Singapore in April this year.
Start-up pioneers from across Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia have applied to join the CACSC Singapore and compete. They come from a range of different verticals including virtual reality, e-commerce, Internet of Things, new media, Online to Offline and gaming.
The Singapore regional final held today took place at BASH and featured the fast-paced start-up pitches of the 12 regional finalists. Two teams were selected as the Singapore regional winners and they will compete in the global final at the Alibaba Cloud Computing Conference in October 2016. The world champion team will stand to win US$216,000 in cloud resource credits.