(Yicai Global) March 10 -- Alibaba Group Holding has opened a research center dedicated to developing fifth-generation network technologies and new application scenarios, online news portal Huanqiu reported today. This is the e-commerce giant's first foray into the 5G sector.

Alibaba XG Lab will be the 15th laboratory at the DAMO Academy, Alibaba's forward-looking science and technology research institute. It will focus on collaborative development of 5G-related infrastructure and applications and will formulate relevant standards for video codec technology and network transmission protocols for the 5G era.

Cloud computing unit AliCloud's global cloud data centers, cloud networks and edge nodes will provide 5G terminal devices with high-performance, reliable computing and storage resources, ensuring that 5G applications perform well, the Hangzhou-based firm said.

XG Lab can also leverage the ample technical reserves offered by Alibaba's strategic positioning and large-scale implementation of key cloud computing technologies and networks over the last 10 years, it added.

Zhang Ming, the executive in charge of intelligent network automation and research at AliCloud, will head up the center. Before joining Alibaba in February 2016, Zhang had worked 10 years at Microsoft Research, a unit of the US computer software giant, and is an expert in the field of high-performance networks.

DAMO Academy, or the Academy for Discovery, Adventure, Momentum and Outlook to give it it's full name, is dedicated to exploring the unknown in science and technology and driving research into basic science and innovative technology with a human vision as its motivating force.

When it was set up in 2017, founder Jack Ma's vision for the academy was for it to "outlive Alibaba, serve at least two billion of the world's people and use technology to make people's lives better." Its research focus includes smart voicing, machine vision, autonomous driving, augmented and virtual reality, smart logistics and quantum computation.

Editor: Kim Taylor