secret three-year experiment
Alibaba's Secret Three-Year Experiment to Reinvent the Factory
After helping more than a million brick-and-mortar Chinese retailers modernize their operations, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has now set its sights on a new target: the country's outdated factories. China's largest corporation unveiled in September its first smart factory, a secret experiment that Alibaba's been conducting for three years on the outskirts of its hometown of Hangzhou. The three-story facility known as Xunxi -- translated literally as "fast rhino" -- is the company's attempt at leveraging its consumer data and technologies to help the multi-trillion-dollar manufacturing arena improving efficiency and meet rising consumer expectations. Here is a quick peek into Alibaba's newest business. Alibaba's path to smart manufacturing starts with garments, a market worth 2.2 trillion yuan ($328 billion) in China last year based on Euromonitor International's estimates.