AliCloud Signs Strategic Partnership With NVIDIA

AliCloud announced a strategic partnership with NVIDIA at its 2016 Computing Conference this week.

NVIDIA, an American company known for designing graphics processing units (GPUs) and chip units (SOCs) for the mobile computing market, will collaborate with AliCloud around AliCloud HPC (High Performance Computing) to create China’s first GPU-based cloud HPC platform. The two companies will also offer GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) computing to startups in the HPC and deep learning industry.

“We’re delighted to provide our clients, especially emerging startup companies, with GPU accelerated computing services on AliCloud, the leader in cloud computing services in China,” said Shanker Trivedi, NVIDIA’s Global VP.

“The main thing is to focus on making it easy for software developers to use the platform. So we made Cuda for application developers, so that they can make use of the GPU,” he says.

Through the partnership, users can now access to the latest GPU accelerated HPC, AI (Artificial Intelligence), and deep learning technologies through the cloud.

“By leveraging our comprehensive accelerated computing platform and global ecosystem, NVIDIA is teaming up with AliCloud to provide emerging companies with strong HPC and Deep Learning support and empower them to innovate,” Mr. Trivedi said.

However, NVIDIA is also “transforming from a chip company to a platform company,” he says. In addition to partnering with AliCloud to create China’s first GPU-based cloud HPC platform, NVIDIA is also interested in working with Alibaba Group. In particular, Alibaba’s focus in e-commerce, finance, and automobile navigation are areas of interest for NVIDIA.

During the conference, AliCloud announced a few other partnerships as well, including 99Cloud (九州云), a company with services around OpenStack, an open source cloud computer software, and HopeRun, a technology consulting firm.

AliCloud also announced the launch of  a “Big Data Platform” at the Computing Conference – 2016 Shanghai Summit. The Big Data Platform offers 20 new solutions covering all aspects of the data development chain, such as computing engines, data processing, data analysis, machine learning and data application.

Simon Hu, president of AliCloud said, “Big data has played an increasing role in every aspect of business. The Big Data Platform fulfills our vision of sharing our vast data troves that will create immense value to our users. The platform is a testament to our ongoing commitment of building an ecosystem that leverages our cloud computing expertise to efficiently and securely serve the needs of our global clients.”

AliCloud expects that it will partner with about 1,000 data developers on the platform in the next three years.