Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of the Alibaba Group, launched the EMEA Ecosystem Partner Program, an initiative to further strengthen the collaboration between Alibaba Cloud’s customers and partners in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The Program will focus on four key areas: the development of digital transformation in targeted vertical industries, supporting talent development, advancing technology innovation and enhancing marketplaces.

Leading industry players such as Intel, Accenture, Hashicorp, Ecritel, Altran, Micropole and Linkbynet are among the initial participants in the EMEA Ecosystem Partner Program. In addition, Station F, the world’s biggest start-up campus, has incorporated the program in their exclusive Perks for their 1,000 start-ups. The collective mission is to create an inclusive ecosystem that can benefit all those involved, particularly the customers in the EMEA region.

“Our goal in EMEA is to bring powerful and elastic cloud services to our customers and create a well-connected, comprehensive ecosystem with our partners to accelerate cloud technology development in the regional cloud industry,” said Yeming Wang, general manager of Alibaba Cloud EMEA.

“As a global cloud industry leader, Alibaba Cloud brings to EMEA cutting-edge cloud technologies and experience and expertise to drive innovations across various verticals. We aim to empower our customers as they undergo their own digital transformation which will greatly improve their business efficiency and ability to provide a positive experience for their customers,” Wang said.

The Program was announced at the Ecosystem Summit EMEA 2018 hosted by Alibaba Cloud at Station F in Paris. The one-day summit attracted nearly 400 representatives from private enterprises, public institutions, technology developers, channel partners and start-ups.

As part of Alibaba’s commitment to incubate a wider technology ecosystem and support start-ups with the best-in-class cloud computing services, Alibaba Cloud hosted a series of Create@Alibaba Cloud Start-up Contests EMEA last year.

“We are committed to foster innovation and nurture local talent, which is why we are excited to have held our Summit today at Station F, a campus which gathers a whole start-up ecosystem under one roof here in Paris. We hope that the Summit has inspired companies of all sizes and demonstrated Alibaba Cloud’s belief in working together for the future of the industry.” Wang added.

Separately, Alibaba Group and Bolloré Group earlier announced a global partnership. Under the agreement, Alibaba Cloud will work jointly with Bolloré and provide a comprehensive suite of solutions that encompasses cloud computing capabilities, big data, artificial intelligence, content delivery network and security solutions.

Alibaba Cloud Ecosystem Summit 2018 is being hosted in four locations across the year as an ongoing event to connect and inform. Paris is the second stop after the Hong Kong inaugural event.

The third stop will be three cities in India in mid-July followed by the final event in Singapore in mid- August.

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