Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang Steps Down, To Focus On Cloud Instead

E-commerce giant Alibaba announced on Tuesday that its chairman and CEO, Daniel Zhang, will be handing over the torch and focusing on leading Alibaba's cloud intelligence group.

While Zhang served both positions so far, the company has decided to split the responsibilities going ahead, and the company's current executive vice chairman, Joe Tsai, will be promoted to chairman.

Eddie Wu, who's currently the chairman of Alibaba's marketplaces Taobao and Tmall, will be the e-commerce behemoth's new CEO.

Zhang To Lead Alibaba's Cloud Intelligence Group

Alibaba underwent its biggest overhaul in 24 years when it split into six independent companies in March 2023. Each of the six business groups was to be led by its respective CEO, who would report to a board of directors.

The reorganization of Alibaba's digital empire was aimed at promoting agility, enhanced decision-making, and faster response to market changes in all of Alibaba's businesses.

Seven weeks after the split, Alibaba spun off the cloud intelligence group that Zhang is now all set to lead. The group includes Alibaba's large language model endeavors, cloud computing business, and communications enterprise messenger Dingtalk.

The cloud intelligence group essentially brings Alibaba's AI research team and cloud businesses under one umbrella to help the two collaborate and progress hand-in-hand.

It's worth noting that Zhang took direct control of Alibaba's cloud computing unit back in January this year, following a series of C-suite reshuffles.

Replacing Jeff Zhang Jianfeng as the chief of Alibaba's cloud business, Daniel Zhang became the acting president of DingTalk.

However, Zhang Jianfeng continued to be responsible for Alibaba's IoT initiatives and proprietary chip development team T-Head. Alibaba also announced that he'd focus on his role as the head of Alibaba's DAMO academy.

Alibaba's Increasing Focus On Cloud

Zhang taking control of the company's cloud computing group earlier this year signaled Alibaba's prioritization of cloud infrastructure. At that time, cloud infrastructure accounted for only a small portion of the company's retail revenue.

However, the management team seemed pretty confident that the cloud would be one of the company's biggest growth drivers.

Daniel Zhang's recent transition goes on to confirm that the e-commerce behemoth is bent on leveraging cloud technologies.

Currently, the world's third-largest cloud computing provider after AWS and Microsoft Corp., Alibaba Cloud holds immense growth potential. The strength of Alibaba Cloud lies primarily in the domestic market in China.

However, in recent years the company has been trying to expand by launching new data centers in companies like Japan, Thailand, and Singapore.

The frequent restructuring of the company and the reshuffling of leaders indicate Alibaba's tendency to adapt to market changes constantly.

The collaboration of cloud and AI through the establishment of the cloud intelligence group, followed by Daniel Zhang's transition, is a clear sign of the company's growing emphasis on cloud solutions.

However, Alibaba faces considerable competition even in the domestic market from rivals like Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Tencent Corp., and Tianyi.

It remains to be seen how Alibaba Cloud will fare against AWS and Microsoft Corp. in the international market in the coming years.

The post Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang Steps Down, To Focus On Cloud Instead appeared first on The Tech Report.