Alibaba: Building a retail ecosystem on data science, machine learning, and cloud

What does it take to compete in a global arena in which retail and cloud are increasingly intertwined? Domain-specific data science and machine learning for the masses, according to Alibaba.
The war in retail has long ago gone technological. Amazon is the poster child of this transition, paving the way first by taking its business online, then embracing the cloud and offering ever more advanced services for compute and storage to thirrd parties via Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Amazon may be the undisputed leader both in terms of its market share in retail and its cloud offering, but that does not mean the competition just sits around watching. Alibaba, which some see as a Chinese counterpart of Amazon, is inspired by Amazon’s success. However, its strategy both in retail and in cloud is diversified, with the two converging on one focal point: data science and machine learning (ML).
Wanli Min, AI and Data mining scientist at Alibaba Cloud, is a key figure in devising and implementing Alibaba’s strategy. ZDNet had a chance to talk with Min about retail in and of the cloud, as well as data science, data pipelines, and ML.