Alibaba Cloud wins deal with Chinese coal giant in push to woo more state-owned clients

Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, the digital technology unit of Alibaba Group Holding, has announced a new partnership with Chinese mining giant Shaanxi Coal and Chemical Industry Group, as the cloud computing service provider steps up efforts to win state-owned enterprise clients.

The Western Energy Cloud platform, supported by Alibaba Cloud, is designed to speed up the digitisation of the energy industry in western China - home to Xian-based Shaanxi Coal, according to an article posted on Alibaba Cloud's WeChat account on Thursday.

The strategic initiative marks a significant step towards enhancing operational efficiency and driving sustainable growth of the sector, the article said.

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A miner at work while underground at the Xiaobaodang coal mine near Yulin, in China's northern Shaanxi province. Photo: AFP alt=A miner at work while underground at the Xiaobaodang coal mine near Yulin, in China's northern Shaanxi province. Photo: AFP>

"We hope to collaborate closely with Shaanxi Coal to explore new-energy platforms in the era of large [language] models," said Zeng Zhenyu, vice-president at Alibaba Cloud. "By integrating industry-specific large models with business systems and processes, we aim to drive innovation in business intelligence."

The launch event was also attended by Huang Xiaolong, deputy director of the National Industrial Information Security Development Research Centre, and Huang Xinbo, deputy director of Shaanxi's provincial industry and information technology department.

While Alibaba Cloud is the largest cloud service provider in China, it lags Huawei Cloud in the government cloud service market, according to a recent report by research firm IDC. Huawei Cloud is also working with Shaanxi Coal in a variety of projects.

Despite its leading position in the overall market, Alibaba Cloud saw its sales fall 2 per cent year on year to 18.6 billion yuan (US$2.6 billion) in the first quarter of this year, contributing 9 per cent of Alibaba Group's total revenue.

Daniel Zhang Yong, CEO and chairman of Alibaba. Photo: Sam Tsang alt=Daniel Zhang Yong, CEO and chairman of Alibaba. Photo: Sam Tsang>

Group chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang Yong, who took direct control of Alibaba Cloud in December, attributed the decline partly to "external changes" in "customer composition".

As part of Alibaba Group's largest-ever corporate restructuring, which was announced in March, Alibaba Cloud will be spun off into an independently-run entity along with five other units, each potentially seeking their own fundraising avenues, such as through initial public offerings.

Under a plan unveiled last month, Alibaba will spin off its cloud business within a year through a "stock dividend distribution to shareholders" and turn the unit into an "independent publicly-listed company".

Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.

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