- AI4S sector projected to reach 10.7 billion yuan ($1.57 billion) by 2030
- Research institutions increasingly seek full-stack AI infrastructure
Alibaba Cloud accounted for 26% of China’s university and research institute AI-for-science (AI4S) cloud market, ranking first nationally as academic institutions accelerate adoption of AI tools for scientific research, according to a new Frost & Sullivan report.
The report, released April 6, said China’s AI-driven scientific discovery is entering a rapid growth phase and could reach 10.7 billion yuan ($1.57 billion) by 2030.
AI4S, sometimes described as the “fifth paradigm” of scientific research after experimentation, theory, computation and data science, is increasingly becoming a strategic focus for Chinese universities and laboratories seeking to speed up research workflows and model development.
Unlike corporate AI customers that mainly demand computing power, research institutions are shifting toward full-stack AI systems integrating infrastructure, models, toolchains and long-term technical support across disciplines, the report said.
Alibaba Cloud has built an end-to-end AI stack spanning computing infrastructure, platforms, models and applications.
Its cloud systems support multiple chip architectures and combine intelligent computing, supercomputing and conventional cloud resources.
The company’s Platform for Artificial Intelligence (PAI) and Bailian platforms provide services ranging from data processing and model fine-tuning to inference deployment.
Alibaba also said its Qwen large language model has reached an 85% usage penetration rate among frontline scientific researchers in China, though the company did not disclose the methodology behind the figure.
Alibaba’s semiconductor arm Pingtouge, or T-Head, has shipped 470,000 Xuantie chips, with more than 60% adopted by external customers including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to the company.
Alibaba Cloud said it now serves more than 80% of China’s “Project 211” universities and research institutions, referring to a group of top-tier universities prioritized by the Chinese government for development.
