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Alibaba Cloud, the data intelligence backbone of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, plans to recruit 5,000 people worldwide in its current financial year after global cloud spending hit

a record high in the first quarter of 2020 amid surging demand brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. Advertisement The openings will be for technical talent in areas including

networks, databases, servers, chips and artificial intelligence, according to a company statement on Tuesday. In April the company announced it would invest 200 billion yuan (US$28.2

billion) over the next three years on its cloud infrastructure to help speed up the digital transformation of businesses in China following the Covid-19 pandemic. “The digital transformation

journey for businesses in China, which was previously expected to take three to five years, is now likely to be accelerated and completed within one year,” said Jeff Zhang, president of

Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. “In light of the fast-growing demand of the digital shift from global clients in all sectors … we are not only building trusted cloud technologies and services,

but also investing in worldwide IT talent who are pioneering the development of cutting-edge cloud and data intelligence technologies.” Global cloud infrastructure services spending grew 34

per cent year on year to a record US$31 billion in the first quarter, driven by organizations around the world moving to remote working amid lockdowns imposed to limit the spread of

Covid-19, according to an April report from research firm Canalys.