Chinese online retail giant JD.com seeks Australian AI experts

China’s second-biggest online retailer, JD.com, is planning to recruit at least 100 Australian data scientists to supercharge its rollout of artificial intelligence technologies across its multi-billion-dollar empire.

Paul Yan, who oversees JD’s digital advertising and marketing business, said JD.com was in talks with a number of Australian universities to develop a range of AI technologies.

“My goal with my team is to try to recruit AI talent to JD. We have lots of AI projects happening at JD and we really need a lot of talent. We are trying to hire as much talent as possible,’’ Mr Yan told The Australian during a brief visit to Australia.

“JD really likes Australia and we are selling a lot of Australian products on JD.com. Australia is a very important market for us,’’ Mr Yan said.

He said JD was increasingly using AI in a range of areas across its global business, which could have future application to Australia.

“AI is at the heart of our business strategy. In the previous 12 years we built our infrastructure and retail business … In the next 12 years our founder and CEO Richard Liu has set our strategy to focus on technology. We want to use technology and AI to automate everything we did in the first 12 years. We want to use the next 12 years to make this happen,’’ he said.

In his address to the recent 26th international joint artificial intelligence conference in Melbourne, Mr Yan revealed JD was using AI to improve operational efficiency across its supply chain, including a new dynamic pricing engine that helps price four million SKUs (stock keeping units) automatically every day. Previously this work needed a team of 5000 people.

To read more, please click on the link below…

Source: Chinese online retail giant JD.com seeks Australian AI experts – The Australian