Alibaba is firing about two-thirds of its 300-strong self driving team. The remainder will be transferred to Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics operation.
Photo from CFP
By WU Yangyu
Damo Academy, Alibaba’s research arm, is giving up its work on autonomous driving. Of the 300-strong team, about 200 will be fired and the rest transferred to Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics operation.
A few fresh graduates will be given the chance to transfer to Alibaba’s other divisions. SHEN Jiaxiang, head of the autonomous driving team and decidedly not a fresh graduate, will not join Cainiao, a source said.
Cainiao is willing to invest in self-driving technology but has limited interest. The remnants of the Damo team will be assigned to maintaining the Xiaomanlv – Little Donkey – service robots.
The Xiaomanlv delivers parcels on university campuses. There are currently about 1,000 R2D2-like droids roaming the lawns of academia across China.
The wheeled logistics robot was developed specifically for terminal logistics, and is suitable for a wide range of application scenarios, integrating AI and auto-driving technology. It operates with human-like intelligence, which gives it a response speed seven times faster than that of a human.
Xiaomanlv can carry up to 100 kilograms and run for over 100 kilometers on a single charge, regardless of weather or GPS connection. It features a drawer-type battery that can be replaced within 20 seconds.
On the other hoof
The Damanlv - Big Donkey - is an autonomous truck, sharing much of the same technology as Xiaomanlv, currently languishing without a dedicated team.
China is one of the main markets for autonomous haulage – involving automation of both rigid mining trucks as well as wide-body trucks. Autonomous trucks help meet increased demand amid a long-term driver shortage. They help lower costs, reduce fuel consumption and are safer than trucks driven by humans.
Alibaba has recently divided itself into six mammoth divisions. Each division and division head has more say in its own decision-making but also more pressure to ensure its own profitability.
This is part of the reason why no one wants to take up something as risky as the Damanlv project
WANG Gang, father of the Xiaomanlv project, joined Damo Academy in 2018 and left in 2021. His successor CHEN Junbo left the company last year.
Both are said to have started their own businesses, in robot cleaners. Shen Jiaxiang is the third leader of the autonomous-driving team and is now the juridical person of Xiaomanlv Technology Group.
