The drizzle in Hangzhou did not stop the footsteps of "Ba Tie". On May 24, 2026, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif arrived at Alibaba's Hangzhou headquarters in the rain and held hands tightly with the group's chairman, Joseph Tsai. Unlike usual diplomatic etiquette, Xia Bazi chose Hangzhou as his first stop during his visit to China, with a clear intention of bringing China's mature digital experience back to Pakistan. At the signing site, Alibaba's international station Daraz、 Alibaba Cloud, Damo Institute and other business sectors have signed a series of contracts with institutions such as Pakistan Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority and Ignite National Technology Fund, extending their cooperation to key areas such as e-commerce, AI infrastructure and medical technology.

At the signing ceremony, Shabazz expressed his admiration that Alibaba's technology and platform will effectively improve the lives of the Pakistani people, especially through digital accessibility and agricultural modernization. Cai Chongxin sees Pakistan's enormous talent potential and believes that AI and cloud computing will be key forces supporting its long-term development.

E-commerce going global

For small and medium-sized enterprises in Pakistan, this cooperation is a crucial "going global" opportunity. According to the agreement, Alibaba International Station will rely on its cross-border AI workbench Accio Work to provide digital training for 10000 Pakistani small and medium-sized enterprises, with the goal of promoting at least 2000 local enterprises to join the platform and setting up a dedicated "Pakistan Pavilion" to directly connect with over 50 million global buyers on the platform.

On the payment side, Alibaba's leading South Asian e-commerce platform Daraz (which has served over 300000 local merchants) plans to invest an additional $3 million through Koko Tech to expand Pakistan's digital payment business and solve the last mile problem of local e-commerce transactions.

AI Foundation

If e-commerce is about solving current business, then AI infrastructure is about laying out the future. Alibaba Cloud will directly participate in the construction of Pakistan's local cloud infrastructure, with a focus on supporting local language models such as Urdu, to achieve "localized" intelligence in smart agriculture, finance, and government governance.

In the field of healthcare, Damo Hospital will export mature "scan multiple check" medical AI technology to help Pakistani medical institutions efficiently screen for cancer and chronic diseases. Previously, this technology has provided services over 20 million times in multiple countries around the world, and its implementation will greatly alleviate the shortage of primary healthcare resources in Pakistan.

Nurturing talent and generating blood

The implementation of technology cannot be separated from talent support. The cooperation between the two sides not only focuses on technology output, but also emphasizes the construction of "hematopoietic" capabilities. Alibaba will cooperate deeply with Pakistan's National Technology Fund (Ignite) and local cloud computing company Sky47 to carry out training in the fields of AI, cloud computing and cutting-edge embodied intelligent education, aiming to cultivate a group of local innovative talents who can adapt to the AI era for Pakistan and ensure the sustainability of digital transformation.

From e-commerce going global to AI healthcare, and then to talent incubation, China Pakistan cooperation is moving from traditional infrastructure "hard connectivity" to "soft connectivity" between digital economy and artificial intelligence, writing a new story for the 2.0 version of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor.Editor/Yang Meiling