Alibaba wants to "master the laws" of AI and put virtual assistants everywhere

China's e-commerce giant Alibaba has announced plans to invest more than $15 billion over the next three years in researching emerging technologies including artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Jack Ma, Alibaba's executive chairman, announced his decision to establish the Alibaba DAMO Academy (DAMO stands for Discovery, Adventure, Momentum, and Outlook) on the first day of the company's 2017 Computing Conference, which opened on Wednesday. Ma said the academy will do research aimed at "solving problems" related to the Internet of things, fintech, quantum computing, and AI. It will open seven research labs in China, the U.S., Russia, Israel, and Singapore. Chinese tech companies are increasingly looking to invest in cutting-edge research, especially artificial intelligence (see "China's AI Awakening").