(Yicai Global) Jan. 31 -- Internet giant Baidu, e-commerce mammoth Alibaba Group Holding and other large Chinese tech firms are providing free artificial intelligence computing power to global scientific research institutions in the fight to prevent and control the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Big Data analysis, literature screening and scientific supercomputing work are all essential components in the research and development of new drugs and vaccines. Global gene testing agencies, epidemic prevention centers and scientific research centers are all racing to find a cure for the deadly virus.

Baidu Research, Baidu's AI lab, has said it will make available Linearfold, the world's fastest linear-time RNA secondary structure prediction algorithm, as well as AI computing capacity. Alibaba's cloud service platform AliCloud will supply AI computing power, the Hangzhou-based firm said on Jan. 29.

Alibaba's DAMO Academy, a global research institute for scientific research and development, produced an intelligent epidemic robot within five days for use by the Zhejiang provincial government as a public health service and management tool. Members of the public can access the platform to find out where the nearest hospital is, how to choose a face mask and other pneumonia-related issues.

As of midnight Jan. 30, 9,692 confirmed cases of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus had been reported in 31 provincial-level regions across China. So far, 213 people have died of the disease.

Editor: Chen Juan, Kim Taylor