“AI Innovation Leaps Ahead, Pharma Industry Embraces Change”: Alibaba Cloud and SDA Co-host Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Procurement Forum, Concluding Successfully

Hangzhou, March 12, 2025​ – The “AI Innovation Leaps Ahead, Pharma Industry Embraces Change” seminar on AI technology applications in the biopharmaceutical industry, jointly organized by Alibaba Cloud and Sustainable Development Asia (SDA), was successfully held at Alibaba’s Xixi Campus in Hangzhou. The event focused on the deep application of AI and cloud computing technologies in scenarios such as drug R&D, production compliance, and patient services, attracting representatives from over 30 multinational pharmaceutical companies and innovative biotech firms to discuss practical pathways for the intelligent upgrading of the biopharmaceutical industry.

Alibaba Pavilion #9: An Immersive Journey into Technology Empowerment and Industry Innovation

Prior to the seminar, the organizers arranged a visit for attendees to Pavilion #9 at Alibaba’s Xixi Campus. The tour covered intelligent exhibition halls, the Tongyi large model demonstration zone, a green data center sandbox, and interactive experience areas. It highlighted Alibaba Cloud’s cutting-edge achievements in cloud computing, AI (e.g., Tongyi Visual, Tongyi Tingwu), and green low-carbon technologies. Through immersive case demonstrations and interactive experiences, the application scenarios of AI in sectors like smart cities and biopharmaceuticals were showcased. Guests expressed high recognition for Alibaba Cloud’s technological innovation and industry empowerment capabilities, laying a practical foundation for the subsequent discussions.

Technological Breakthrough: Tongyi Large Models Reshaping the Industry’s Intelligent Foundation

An Alibaba Cloud Solutions Architect systematically outlined the evolution roadmap of the Tongyi large model technology matrix in a keynote speech. This system achieves three-dimensional innovation through “Full-Scale, Multi-Modal, and Wide Open-Source”:

• Qwen-VL: A large-scale vision-language model supporting image and text input, capable of assisting radiologists in identifying anomalies in medical images, thereby improving diagnostic accuracy and efficiency.
• Tongyi Tingwu: Pushing the boundaries of ASR technology, it supports real-time interaction in multiple languages/dialects with industry-leading accuracy in medical scenarios.
• Tongyi Lingma: It supports code snippet search, enhancing code generation efficiency, and has already helped pharmaceutical companies build clinical trial management systems.

Selina Yuan, President, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence International, and Senior Vice President, Alibaba Group, stated, “‘Open source ecosystem is key to technology inclusivity,’ the executive emphasized. Currently, the ModelScope community gathers over 2.3 million developers, and downloads of the Tongyi model series have exceeded 200 million. Its open-source QwQ-32B model has surpassed DeepSeek-R1 in reasoning capabilities in authoritative evaluations.”

Security & Compliance: Building a Digital Trust System for the Pharmaceutical Industry

Addressing the stringent compliance requirements of the biopharmaceutical industry, an Alibaba Cloud Product Security Architect unveiled a “Three-Tier Cloud Foundation Protection Solution”:

• Infrastructure Layer: Features KPMG-certified GxP assessment reports, meeting regulatory standards in China, the US, and Europe (details available in Alibaba Cloud’s “Pharmaceutical Industry Compliance Solution” on its official website).
• Data Security Layer: Provides confidential computing capabilities, enabling full lifecycle protection of R&D data (technical details refer to the Alibaba Cloud Data Security Whitepaper).
• Application Monitoring Layer: Includes built-in electronic signature audit functionality.

This “Three-Tier Cloud Foundation Protection Solution” has been implemented at a multinational pharmaceutical company, helping them reduce third-party system security audit cycles from 45 days to 72 hours and lower compliance operational costs by 32%.

Real-World Applications: AI-Driven R&D Efficiency Revolution

Several industry benchmark cases were shared at the event:

• AstraZeneca Collaboration Project: Built an adverse event summarization system based on the Tongyi Qianwen large language model and the Bailian platform, improving report accuracy and efficiency.
• Haleon Health Services: Optimized responses to user health inquiries through an AI-driven multilingual customer service system enhanced with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology.
• A Cosmetics Company Innovation: Used Tongyi Wanxiang generative AI to shorten new product design cycles, achieving significant brand rejuvenation effects.

Sustainable Development: Dual Drivers of Technological Innovation and ESG

Alibaba Cloud proposed a “Cloud-based ESG Practice Framework,” promoting green transformation through green computing power, intelligent governance, and automated operations. “Digital transformation must resonate at the same frequency as sustainable development,” noted Russell, a representative from SDA.

Roundtable Insights: Practices and Challenges of AI Technology in Multinational Pharmaceutical Companies

In exploring the integration of biopharmaceuticals and AI, Alibaba Cloud, multinational pharmaceutical companies, and SDA representatives engaged in in-depth discussions.Regarding implementation, Alibaba Cloud cited examples like optimizing pathological image analysis for AstraZeneca and Haleon’s multilingual customer service system, demonstrating AI’s value in shortening R&D cycles and improving service efficiency. A multinational pharma company shared preliminary results using AI to predict clinical trial risks, noting that “technology needs to complement and coexist with clinical experience.”Addressing common challenges like data compliance and system upgrades, SDA highlighted the compliance dilemmas multinational companies face between GDPR and China’s Data Security Law. Alibaba Cloud proposed solutions such as a “Hybrid Cloud + Secure Room” localization strategy and lightweight models adaptable to legacy systems as potential ways forward.Regarding supply chain intelligence, while smart sourcing and risk early warning have already led to an 18% improvement in inventory turnover, companies pointed out that “supplier data quality limits AI prediction accuracy” and called for developing an ESG toolchain for closed-loop empowerment. A clear consensus emerged: as AI moves from the lab deeper into industry, only through ecosystem collaboration between technology providers (Alibaba Cloud), industry organizations (SDA), enterprises, and policymakers can the “last mile” from algorithm to value be truly bridged.

Conclusion

The summit comprehensively showcased the application value and challenges of AI in the biopharmaceutical industry through technology demonstrations, case studies, and roundtable discussions. Participants agreed that AI is not just an efficiency tool but a core driver for the industry’s sustainable development, requiring a balance between compliance, ethics, and ecosystem collaboration.