Jihong Co. Partners with Alibaba Cloud to Build an AI-Native Foundation

Jihong Co., a Chinese A-share listed company, has partnered with Alibaba Cloud to jointly build an AI-native foundation for its business, according to media reports including Sohu that surfaced around August 2. The deal marks another traditional listed company choosing to rebuild its digital base around AI-native architecture.

The core of the cooperation is the AI-native foundation concept: starting from cloud and AI infrastructure so that AI becomes a native part of business systems, data flows, and operational processes rather than a bolt-on tool. Jihong will rely on Alibaba Cloud's overall capabilities in cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence to carry out the upgrade.

Jihong runs cross-border social e-commerce and packaging and printing businesses, and has been applying AI to marketing content generation and operational efficiency in recent years. The partnership with Alibaba Cloud means its AI investment is moving from point applications toward systematic, platform-level infrastructure, elevating AI from a tool to a foundation layer.

For Alibaba Cloud, the deal is another enterprise-market win for its AI strategy. As more industry customers build AI as infrastructure, competition among cloud vendors is shifting from raw compute and storage toward integrated cloud-plus-model-plus-application delivery.

What to watch next is execution: the scope and implementation plan of the cooperation, the concrete architecture of Jihong's AI-native foundation, and how much it actually transforms the company's cross-border and packaging businesses. Those details will determine whether this deal becomes a reference case for other traditional enterprises undergoing AI transformation.