Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) is shaking up its cloud computing division with a trio of personnel changes meant to reignite the department after the Chinese tech giant pulled back its spinout and public listing plans.
The company plans to emphasize public cloud, hybrid cloud and cloud infrastructure, three businesses central to the artificial intelligence sector, with new executives heading up each.
Weiguang Liu has been tapped to head the public cloud arm, Jin Li will lead the hybrid cloud division and Jiangwei Jiang will serve as the cloud infrastructure chief, according to reports citing sources familiar with the matter.
All three are longtime Alibaba employees.
The changes follow Alibaba’s unexpected decision to nix the spinoff and IPO of its cloud computing division, which sent shares of the company plunging 10% in Hong Kong.
Going forward, the division will prioritize artificial intelligence in the could. Specifically, AI applications rely on massive amounts of computing power, which Alibaba can help provide.
“The cloud intelligence group will resolutely implement a strategy of driving growth with AI and of prioritizing public cloud. It will scale up its technology investments in AI-related software and hardware,” Wu said on the company’s earnings call earlier this month.
“In the future, incremental demand for cloud computing will be driven by demand for AI, and most AI computing will run in the cloud.”
Shares of Alibaba traded 0.7% lower Friday afternoon at $78.42 in New York.
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