Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has unveiled its latest AI models, solutions, upgraded infrastructure offerings, and AI empowerment program at its inaugural AI Tech Day in Malaysia today. These advancements aim to empower businesses and developers in Malaysia to build innovative AI applications more cost-effectively and drive a thriving generative AI ecosystem in the region.

The event, officiated by YB Datuk Wilson Ugak Anak Kumbong, Deputy Minister of Digital, also marked Alibaba Cloud’s announcement of key collaborations with leading Malaysian enterprises including YTL Power International Bhd’s artificial intelligence (AI) innovation unit, YTL AI Labs , Malaysia’s leading fund management company, Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), and Malaysia’s digital marketing service provider HiSEVEN reinforcing Alibaba Cloud’s role as a trusted technology partner in the country’s AI ecosystem.

In his address, the Deputy Minister commended the spirit of collaboration, stating “Malaysia is committed to leveraging AI for digital transformation and economic growth. With initiatives like Alibaba Cloud’s AI advancements and industry collaborations, we are strengthening our AI ecosystem and empowering local businesses. Together, we can build a Malaysia that is not just a participant but a leader in the global digital economy—one that is innovative, inclusive, and prosperous.”

“At Alibaba Cloud, we are committed to driving AI innovation in Malaysia by providing cutting-edge models, scalable infrastructure, and dedicated support for customers, partners and developers. Our latest advancements will empower local talents and businesses to enhance efficiency, scale AI applications, and contribute to Malaysia’s digital future powered by AI,” said Kun Huang, General Manager of Malaysia, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

Powering AI Innovation with Advanced Offerings

Next-Generation Computing and AI Infrastructure – To support growing AI demands, Alibaba Cloud announced the global rollout of its 9th Generation Enterprise Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances, set to be available in mid of 2025 in Malaysia. The latest generation of ECS instances has notable performance enhancements compared to its previous iteration, including a 20% increase in computing efficiency. Additionally, by accelerating networks through eRDMA (elastic Remote Direct Memory Access), its performance in supporting high-performance computing, search recommendations, and Redis databases can be further improved by up to 50%.

Cutting-Edge AI Models and Multimodal Capabilities – Alibaba Cloud introduced the Qwen2.5 series, its latest generation of large language models (LLMs), available in parameter sizes ranging from 7 billion to 72 billion. These models are now accessible via API on its generative AI development platform, Model Studio for businesses and developers to build and deploy AI applications efficiently across various industries, from finance and retail to healthcare and education.

Alibaba Cloud has also unveiled its latest visual-language model, Qwen2.5-VL, representing a significant enhancement over its predecessor, Qwen2-VL. This open-source, multimodal model is offered in various sizes, ranging from 3 billion, 7 billion to 72 billion parameters, and includes both base and instruction-tuned versions. The flagship model, Qwen2.5-VL-72B-Instruct, is now accessible through the Qwen Chat platform, while the entire Qwen2.5-VL series is available on Hugging Face and Alibaba’s open-source community Model Scope. 

To further support developers, Alibaba Cloud has also unveiled its proprietary AI-powered coding assistant, which will be available for developers in April 2025. The AI Programmer offers features such as code completion and optimization, debugging assistance, code snippet search and batch unit test generation. It provides developers with an efficient and seamless coding experience, significantly enhancing productivity and creativity.

AI Solutions for Business and Enterprise Applications – Alibaba Cloud’s AI-driven solutions are designed to help businesses improve operational efficiency, improve customer engagement, and drive digital transformation. Among its latest offerings:

1. AI Doc: An intelligent document processing tool designed to help enterprises manage and utilize their knowledge more efficiently, flexibly, and cost-effectively through converting unstructured documents into structured data, streamlining workflows and reducing operational costs. It leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) to provide a range of functionalities, including document parsing, core content extraction, knowledge base Q&A, content comparison, and report generation.
2. Voice Insight: A multilingual voice recognition and analytics tool that enhances quality inspections, customer interactions, and service monitoring with AI-driven audio and video analysis.
3. Smart Studio: A next-generation content creation platform powered by AI, enabling seamless text-to-image and text-to-video applications to enhance marketing and creative outputs.
4. SmartQ: An AI-driven data analysis module of Quick BI, Alibaba Cloud’s Business Intelligence (BI) platform solution. Powered by Alibaba Cloud’s proprietary large language model Qwen, this innovative chat-based BI solution allows even non-technical users to generate insights by asking questions in plain language, greatly simplifying enterprise analytics experience.

Driving AI Innovation Through Strategic Collaborations

Alibaba Cloud is strengthening Malaysia’s AI ecosystem through key collaborations, showcasing how its secure and innovative AI solutions are being applied in real-world scenarios.

YTL AI Labs: Alibaba Cloud is collaborating with YTL Power International Bhd’s artificial intelligence (AI) innovation unit, YTL AI Labs, to support its AI research and implementation efforts. YTL AI Labs collaborated with Alibaba Cloud’s AI scientists and architects to implement some of its solutions including the building of Ilmu 0.1, which has achieved significant performance benchmarks in Malay-language multitask language understanding (MMLU). Since September 2024, YTL AI Lab has been building technologies on top of Alibaba Cloud’s advanced infrastructure to fine-tune its models, with ongoing AI initiatives such as AI dashboards and optical character recognition (OCR) AI technologies. This collaboration underscores Alibaba Cloud’s role in advancing Malaysia’s AI ecosystem, particularly in language-based AI applications.

“Our collaboration with Alibaba Cloud has enabled us to accelerate our AI research and development, particularly in advancing Malay-language AI models. By leveraging Alibaba Cloud’s infrastructure and AI capabilities, we are making significant strides in creating localised AI solutions that cater to Malaysia’s digital landscape,” said Foong Chee Mun, Chief Executive Officer, YTL AI Labs.

Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB): Alibaba Cloud has also announced its extended collaboration with PNB through a signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The two parties aim to collaborate to leverage Alibaba Cloud’s advanced AI technologies to enhance operational efficiency, decision-making processes, and customer support for PNB. Key initiatives include the establishment of an AI Lab to drive PNB’s AI journey, which encompasses a variety of use cases set for exploration in 2025, such as an investment data visualisation tool, automated internal analyst reports, and an investment advisory agent powered by a large language model. By adopting these innovations, the collaboration is expected to streamline fund management and investment assessments while ensuring data security and compliance, ultimately benefiting PNB’s stakeholders and enhancing the overall customer experience.

“Alibaba Cloud has been instrumental in enhancing our customer-facing operations in digital retail and distribution. At PNB, we are committed to enhancing our customer experience through scalable and resilient solutions, robust technology risk management practices and strategic adoption of emerging technologies such as Gen AI.” said Dato’ Rick Ramli, Deputy President & Group Chief Executive, Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB).

HiSEVEN: Alibaba Cloud has announced its deepened collaboration with HiSEVEN, a digital marketing service provider in Malaysia through a signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) during the event. Leveraging Alibaba Cloud’s advanced technology in AI and cloud computing, the collaboration aims to support HiSEVEN to enhance AI-driven marketing solutions, promote standardised AI applications, and improve business operational efficiency. 

“This collaboration will enable HiSEVEN and Alibaba Cloud to further penetrate the marketing sector, utilising advanced technology to offer brands smarter and more efficient marketing tools and strategic support. HiSEVEN remains dedicated to product development and optimisation, enhancing service quality, and assisting brands in achieving significant breakthroughs in the global marketplace.” said Jason Lin, Chief Executive Officer, HiSEVEN.

In addition, to further accelerate the local AI innovation and talent development in the region, the leading cloud service provider has launched its inaugural Alibaba Cloud Malaysia AI Hackathon 2025 in partnership with Malaysia’s digital solutions specialist Agmo Holdings Berhad during the event, inviting innovators, developers, and tech enthusiasts in the region to collaborate, create, and showcase their AI expertise. The program will be open for local registration from February 27 until April 30, 2025, providing local talent with an opportunity to leverage cutting-edge AI technologies and compete on a global stage.

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