Alibaba has announced it plans to invest RMB 100 billion, the equivalent of around $15 billion, over the next three years in a new global research and development program called Alibaba DAMO Academy. The acronym stands for “Discovery, Adventure, Momentum and Outlook.” The academy will start by launching research labs in seven cities around the world, including Beijing and Hangzhou in China, San Mateo and Bellevue in the U.S., Moscow in Russia, Tel Aviv in Israel, and Singapore. Research will focus on both fundamental and disruptive technology research, in areas such as data intelligence, internet of things (IoT), financial tech, human-machine interaction and quantum computing, with the objective to attract world-class experts in these areas. The academy will be led by Jeff Zhang, the Alibaba Group's chief technology officer. The program will collaborate with universities and programs such as the University of California at Berkeley's RISE Lab's project. The advisory board of DAMO Academy comprises professors from Princeton University, Harvard, the MIT, Columbia University, the University of Washington, Beijing Institute of Technology, Peking University and Zhejiang University. Alibaba currently has around 25,000 engineers and scientists on its staff.

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