How Paytm plans to differentiate itself with Alibaba-powered AI cloud offering

One97 Communications Ltd, the parent of digital payments unicorn Paytm, has tied up with Chinese conglomerate Alibaba for the the launch of an artificial intelligence-powered cloud computing platform. 

Using Alibaba’s cloud infrastructure, Paytm AI Cloud for India will offer a suit of ready-to-use artificial intelligence tools allowing enterprises to automate complex organisational application program interfaces (APIs) such as workflow, payment integration and customer relationship management, the company said in a statement. 

Paytm AI Cloud has four layers of offerings which includes a cloud computing platform, marketing automation tools, payment infrastructure, and enterprise messaging solutions.

Paytm is looking to differentiate itself with in-house payment assistance for enterprises, with plans to add cross-platform enterprise messaging too.

The firm is planning to offer enterprise-messaging solutions in partnership with DingTalk.

Alibaba owns DingTalk and has a significant stake in Paytm.

“Every new-age organisation needs access to infrastructure to quickly sandbox their ideas, run through multiple experiments, and iterate hypothesis without worrying about managing their infrastructure,” said Paytm vice-president Sujit Kumar Mishra. “They need growth engines to acquire customers, engage one-to-one with them, and AI empowered systems to predict their business.” 

Mishra further said that Paytm AI Cloud can help companies conserve time, money and resources.

The firm further said that all data related to Paytm AI Cloud will be processed and stored on servers in India. That commitment comes amid a push by the government to ensure foreign firms store data of Indian citizens locally as data privacy concerns have escalated globally.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) dominates the cloud market in India, with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud among the other top players.

Jack Ma-led Alibaba dominates the Chinese cloud computing market and is currently the second-largest player in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region. Alibaba Cloud opened its first data centre in India earlier this year.

Alex Li, who heads Alibaba’s cloud business for Asia-Pacific, told TechCircle last week that Alibaba Cloud was working to accelerate adoption of its services among tits portfolio companies in India.