Alibaba Cloud opens centre in Dubai to boost digital skills

Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, unveiled the MEA region’s Alibaba Cloud Academy Training Centre, which will serve as a hub for customers and partners to elevate their digital competence.

Located in Dubai Internet City, a global tech ecosystem part of TECOM Group PJSC, the training centre is designed to empower Alibaba Cloud’s ecosystem partners and customers through delivering training, workshops, and certifications. It joins a community of more than 3,500 customers, including Fortune 500s, SMEs and start-ups powering regional digital transformation from Dubai Internet City.

By partnering with leading provider of security services and solutions Aladdin Cyber Security, the Training Centre aims to host monthly training and enablement programmes covering a wide spectrum of cutting-edge technologies, from AI to database management to elastic computing. These programmes are part of a larger effort to help its ecosystem partners and customers stay up-to-date with the latest Alibaba Cloud technologies and develop top digital talents.

The objectives of the training programme align with the Dubai Economic Agenda D33’s goal to double Dubai’s economy in the next decade through digital transformation contributions, as well as the UAE Centennial 2071’s blueprint for a future-oriented, knowledge-based economy.

“The launch of the training centre showcases our commitment and continued investment into the MEA region to help businesses transform digitally and achieve business success in the long term. We’re committed to growing together with our local partners and customers and providing them with the latest cloud computing and AI technologies to enable them to innovate and grow their businesses in the MEA region,” said Eric Wan, General Manager of Alibaba Cloud Middle East, Turkey & Africa.

“Digital transformation is the engine propelling global economic growth in the 21st century. To sustain its positive impact requires a workforce adept at navigating and shaping its rapidly evolving demands,” said Ammar Al Malik, Executive Vice President - Commercial at TECOM Group, on behalf of Dubai Internet City. “By investing in upskilling and training talent on cutting-edge technologies, we can remain agile, innovative and competitive, in line with the vision of the Dubai Economic Agenda ‘D33’. Alibaba Cloud’s physical training centre will empower our global tech community of professionals and entrepreneurs as well as countless more to power regional economic diversification efforts and innovation by remain ahead of the digital curve.”

Alibaba Cloud aims to train 5,000 people over the next five years in the MEA Region. The launch of this brick-and-mortar training centre complements the virtual training programmes that Alibaba Cloud has offered over the years to empower digital talents globally.

In less than a year and since April 2023, the Alibaba Cloud Academy programme has trained over 60,000 people worldwide, offering over 300 online & offline certification courses, 16 different kinds of professional certifications, 250 online hands-on labs with over 300 associated global partners from the Alibaba Cloud Academy.

Separately, China’s Alibaba Cloud recently said it will slash prices of some of its products by as much as 55%, its most severe price cut to date, amid intensifying competition to attract heavy users, particularly artificial intelligence software developers.

This would be the second time the cloud arm of Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding, opens new tab has cut prices in less than a year after reductions of as much as 50% in April.

The cloud service provider said it would lower prices of over 100 products by an average of 20%.

The price cuts constitute Alibaba’s latest effort to persuade developers to build data-intensive AI models and applications using its cloud services.