(Yicai Global) July 3 -- German automaker BMW will team with Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding and local government to build an ‘internet+automobile’ innovation base in Shanghai. They pledge to provide at least 300 firms with cloud computing, digitization and future automobile technologies in the next three years.

The base in the eastern Chinese financial hub’s Pudong New Area will have more than 5,000 square meters of office space, which it will dangle as bait to lure over 30 projects within three years, BMW, Alibaba and the management committee of the Shanghai Golden Bridge Economic and Technological Development Zone, which will house the enclave, jointly announced today in a press release.

The base will also cooperate with venture capital, banking and other financial service institutions to offer targeted funding to at least 20 tech firms for projects over three years, offering help via business plan diagnoses, project roadshows, equity financing, risk control training and listing guidance.

The Munich-based auto giant and the Hangzhou-headquartered tech titan will enable small firms to speed up their innovation via crossover integration of big companies. New, digitized infrastructure will lower the innovation bar for entrepreneurs and afford them access to advanced facilities like cloud computing, artificial intelligence and Big Data, said Ren Geng, president of Alibaba Cloud.

This is not the two leviathans’ first partnership. BMW initiated cooperation with Alibaba in the voice assistant Tmall Genie in April 2018.

Shanghai Golden Bridge Economic and Technological Development Zone is managed by Shanghai Jinqiao Group under the Shanghai branch of the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of China’s cabinet the State Council.

Editor: Ben Armour