Tech giants Intel and Alibaba Cloud have announced a partnership in the cloud IoT (Internet of Things) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) space. With this alliance, Alibaba seeks to consolidate its position as a data-centric and pc-centric player in the global market, to compete with the likes of AWS, Microsoft and Google.
According to Alibaba, enterprises are taking IoT and AI on a different level by building applications and connecting devices by leveraging the cloud. They say that this approach has allowed enterprises to reach business goals quickly and decrease the burden of IT workload.
By partnering with Intel, Alibaba say that they will be consolidating the Cloud-AI-IoT triangle that has enterprises building strategic alliances globally. They say that with this deal, they will focus on the data-centric and pc-centric aspects of IT to push profitability for both entities.
Laying emphasis on the deals that are done, Alibaba say that they have introduced-
1) The Joint Edge Computing Platform that merges Intel’s software, hardware and AI prowess with Alibaba cloud’s IoT capabilities – to convert accumulated data into business insights,
2) Apsara Stack Industry Alliance to combine security tools with Alibaba’s cloud platform – so that both enterprises can build hybrid cloud solutions and,
3) Work on OBS Cloud, the broadcasting platform for the Olympics that will see both entities working on new technologies.
Intel say that this alliance will see them focusing more on the data-centric aspect than the pc-centric aspect as compared to their partner. They claim that this approach will help them turn the heat on their chip-making competitor, AMD.
Navin Shenoy, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Data Center Group at Intel, commented:
Alibaba’s highly innovative data-centric computing infrastructure supported by Intel technology enables real-time insight for customers from the cloud to the edge.
Our close collaboration with Alibaba from silicon to software to market adoption enables customers to benefit from a broad set of workload-optimized solutions.
In closing, the cloud giant said that they will make SMBs worldwide reach their cloud IoT and AI goals with this deal just as they made with myDevices for turnkey IoT products.