Alibaba and the government of Macau Special Administrative Region signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement for the construction of smart city services in the gambling mecca in southern China.

Under the agreement, the two parties will use Alibaba's cloud computing and artificial intelligence technologies to coerate in various sectors, including traffic management, tourism, medical services, urban comprehensive management, and talent training.

This project will last for four years and is expected to see initial results in mid-2018. The first phase will be implemented from 2017 to 2019 and it will focus on cloud computing center construction while promoting tourism, traffic management, medical services, and e-government applications. The second phase will be from July 2019 to June 2021 and the two parties will implement cooperation in environmental protection, customs clearance, and economic forecasting, in addition to the further completion of infrastructure.

Alibaba Group's senior vice president and president of Aliyun Hu Xiaoming said that the cooperation is one of the results of Aliyun's entry into its Global 2.0 phase. The company will bring its successful technologies and experience that were tested in Hangzhou to Macau. Aliyun will provide cloud computing abilities and intelligent technologies to help Macau establish an artificial intelligence center for urban governance, so as to assist the smart city development of Macau.