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Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com is planning to open an artificial intelligence research center in the UK, as part of its ambitious plans to enter Europe and expand globally.
The AI facility, which is expected to open in Cambridge next year, comes after JD.com, known as Jingdong in China, established its first research and development center in Silicon Valley in 2015.
According to the Financial Times , Jingdong founder and chief executive Liu Qiangdong pointed to the UK’s strong education sector as a factor for choosing Cambridge, adding that the country has a talented workforce specialized in AI technology with costs lower “than in the US and even China.”
Jingdong tested delivery robots in China last June, with the company focusing on developing its strength in logistics.
While Jingdong has still not launched sales in either Europe or the US, the high-tech research centers are just one aspect of the foundations being laid down by China’s second biggest retailer as a precursor to going global.
The company, which according to Bloomberg is worth 68 billion US dollars, has pledged an investment of one billion euros in developing a logistics network in France in the next two years. An office has already been set up in Paris, with Jingdong planning to make its European debut in the French market, before expanding to Germany and then the UK.
Liu met with British Prime Minister Theresa May on her visit to China last week, and signed deals to sell two billion pounds’ (2.8 billion US dollars) worth of British goods to Chinese buyers in the next three years.
Jingdong plans to officially launch its e-commerce platform and start sales in the US market by the end of this year, three years after the launch of its research center in Santa Monica. To fund the push in a market dominated by Amazon, Jingdong is looking to sell a 15-percent stake in its logistics branch to Tencent, according to Bloomberg.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in January, Liu said that the company would also establish a presence in “Vietnam, India, Philippines, Malaysia - every Southeast Asian country” by the end of the year. The push into Europe and the US, however, will not be so straightforward, thanks to fierce competition with Chinese rival Alibaba, and Amazon’s dominance in both markets.
Amazon's huge growth has seen it push beyond e-commerce into new areas like unmanned grocery stores, with its Amazon Go concept.
Amazon’s transition from e-commerce platform into television streaming, cloud computing, AI tech and bricks-and-mortar shopping saw it rake in an operating income of 4.1 billion US dollars in 2017. The 1.9 billion US dollars of operating income in the last three months of the year marked the company's best quarter on record.
The US giant is investing heavily in its cloud computing sector, with Jingdong hoping that could leave an opening for its drone delivery technology to gain a foothold. According to thepaper.cn, Jingdong has ambitious plans for its logistics network to be completely automated and unmanned by 2020.
Tests on Jingdong's drone technology are ongoing, with plans to officially launch drone delivery later this year.
Reuters reported last month that JD Logistics, the arm of the company that handles deliveries, was looking to raise two billion US dollars in a fundraising round this year, ahead of a possible IPO overseas.
(CGTN)
