by Doris Liu

JD Cloud announced the launch of a virtualization engine, Jing Gang 2.0 (京刚2.0), during its annual cloud summit last week, among an array of other tech products to better unleash the capabilities of a digitally intelligent supply chain. Behind the scenes is JD’s resolution of pushing digital intelligence and its seamless collaboration with partners such as Intel, the world’s leading chipmaker, to implement the technologies into practice.

As the industry-leading software and hardware integrated virtualization engine, Jing Gang 2.0 offloads the virtualization to a dedicated hardware for acceleration, boosting storage performance by 10 times when integrated with the unified storage platform Yun Hai (云海, meaning “Cloud Sea”).

Supporting the prime performance of Jing Gang 2.0 is the bare metal cloud host jointly developed by JD and Intel. Based on Intel FPGA and Xeon processors, JD Cloud has developed its own smartNIC to secure a safe and efficient computing environment. Intel Memory Failure Prediction and recovery system, which was collaboratively developed and deployed by both companies, has also improved the reliability and stability of the cloud infrastructure by nearly 40 percent.

Furthermore, the two parties released an overall solution of cold-plate liquid cooling for both the data center level and microprocessor level at the Cloud Summit, promoting the development of the environment and liquid cooling technology with a long-term pursuit of more sustainable green datacenters.

JD Cloud is now working with Intel to further establish a secure and reliable computing environment based on Intel Software Guard Extensions of the third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processor.

“Together with our partners, we are driving the application of intelligent technologies to deepen the digital transformation in a wide range of professions and industries,” said Yali Liang, Intel’s vice president in the Sales, Marketing and Communications Group, in her speech at the summit.

As strategic partners, Intel and JD have been working together for 13 years on retail, datacenter businesses and more. The two sides have carried out comprehensive and in-depth cooperation around cloud computing, artificial intelligence, green and low-carbon datacenters and other areas, aiming at driving innovations and leveraging cloud capabilities to benefit businesses all over the world.

 

(liujun215@jd.com)

by Vivian Yang

JD Technology (JDT) was awarded Jiangsu province’s “Champion Company for Smart Agriculture 2022” at the Jiangsu Digital Village Development Conference on July 6^th. Under a comprehensive partnership, JD.com has made big strides in the past year in six main areas to support the rural revitalization of the coastal province of China:

First, making Suqian’s hairy crabs a new signature product of Jiangsu. Through collaboration with the agriculture and rural bureau of Suqian, a city of Jiangsu province, JD supported local farmers on large-scale cooperative production, standardized breeding and quality control systems and omni-channel marketing that helped Internet traffic grow to millions for stores selling the products. As a result, sales of Suqian hairy crabs in 2021 increased 173 times, and during the first ten minutes of this year’s JD618 Grand Promotion, sales of the crabs rose 1150 percent year on year.

Second, promoting sales of local specialty peaches. From scientific farm management, standardized fruits sorting, fresh delivery process to marketing channels, JD has leveraged its know-how in e-commerce and technologies to deeply participate in the digital upgrading of the production and sales of the peaches from Yangshan town under Wuxi city of Jiangsu. Moreover, a JD warehouse was built on site to enhance delivery efficiency across the country. According to Yangshan peach association’s sales data, in 2021, 65 percent of local peach yield was sold through JD.com, making the platform the largest sales channel, and the percentage is expected to reach 73 percent in 2022.

Third, co-creating national demonstration projects on promoting e-commerce in villages in Rudong and Siyang counties. Based on JD Cloud’s technologies, a network of e-commerce public service centers and stations have been built in the two counties which offer a variety of e-commerce services including skill training for individual farmers and companies, brand promotion support, produce tracing systems, and more.

Fourth, giving birth to the new e-commerce produce brand “Jiu Si Xian”. In Chinese, the brand’s pronunciation sounds similar to “fresh indeed” and indicates its origin of Siyang county. Thanks to the e-commerce public service center created by JDT in Siyang as well as JD Logistics’ last-mile delivery services, the brand is able to provide fresh local agricultural products to nationwide customers quickly via e-commerce.

Fifth, the founding of JD’s first demonstration park for agricultural technologies. Situated in Suyu district of Suqian city and covering an area of about 500,000 km², the demonstration park is equipped with three smart systems including the greenhouse environment monitoring, linkage control and the big data center; and contains six functional areas including smart agricultural production, high-tech seedling breeding, processing logistics and delivery, IoT demonstration, science and innovation training center, and sightseeing and leisure fruit-picking. It is estimated that the park will support more than 30 cooperatives and family farms in the vicinity, driving up the production of fruits and vegetables from over 333,000 km², thus the income growth of the households.

Sixth, offering e-commerce training courses to cultivate the new generation of farmers. By leveraging JD’s training resources from JD E-Commerce Industry College in the areas of cross-border e-commerce, new media operation, livestreaming, big data marketing and more， Jiangsu College of Finance & Accounting offered e-commerce training to more than 3,000 students in the past year and the courses will continue to expand in hopes of fostering more talents that can use modern e-commerce skills to promote agricultural development of their hometowns.

Wang Zhengming, vice president of JDT’s intelligent cities business group, pointed out that the company’s technological solution for villages will focus on the building of an intelligent operating system, a new type of infrastructure based on which JDT will continue to develop solutions for the upgrading of the agricultural industry, the modernization of village governance and supporting digitally smart lives for the farmers.

 

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

by Doris Liu

JD.com, in hand with Tianjin University, received the second-class Technology Progress Award The Wu Wenjun AI Science and Technology Awards, which is the most prestigious awards in this field in China, for their work on key intelligent technology that matches products to customers and its application in marketing. The announcement was made on July 16.

This Award is named after the renowned Chinese distinguished mathematician and AI pioneer, Wu Wenjun, who was also an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and were initiated by the only association at the national level officially recognized in the field of intelligent science and technology, the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence (CAAI).

JD has been committed to the research of the core basic technology of digital intelligence. Yongjun Bao, Vice President of JD.com, noted that JD had made a breakthrough in intelligently matching products to customers with accuracy, in-depth user insight and thorough understanding of products, which not only satisfies the personalized and differentiated consumption needs, but has also brought significant economic and social benefits.

In particular, the project proposed three key technologies around user and product attributes and matching recommendations: Multi-level user portrait modeling, product cross modeling across different modalities, and accurate matching of products to people. During the project period, the technical team has published 42 high-level papers and obtained 25 national invention patents. The related contents were cited by Google Scholar more than 4,000 times and won more than 40 awards, including the ADMEN International Awards.

The project has been tested in practice in JD’s complex retail scenarios, helping JD’s intelligent marketing platform grow by more than 200 percent between 2018-2020 by providing users with accurate product recommendations. Furthermore, marketing tools built based on the technology have served for more than 100,000 domestic and foreign merchants to reduce their costs and improve user experience with refined and efficient marketing models.

Since the comprehensive transformation to technology development in 2017, JD has invested nearly RMB 80 billion yuan in basic science and technology R&D. To date, JD’s technological achievements have expanded across many application scenarios such as intelligent retail, intelligent supply chain, logistics and warehousing, smart cities, the industrial Internet as well as the exploration of frontier fields such as credible artificial intelligence, super deep learning, quantum machine learning and more. With JD Cloud as the core brand for technology, JD will continue to help digital transformation and upgrading of partners with lower costs and higher efficiency.

 

(liujun215@jd.com)

by Xiaoqian Han

JD.com Overseas, JD.com’s cross-border e-commerce platform, launched the 2022 Consumption Trends in Overseas Report on July 19^th, revealing the purchasing preferences of cross-border customers based on consumption data.

Below are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• The cross-border sector is experiencing a boom
• JD.com Overseas’ consumers aged 28-45 are the main group of buyers
• JD.com Overseas’ consumers are keen on Chinese-themed products

The cross-border e-commerce market continues to grow

According to the report, the current overseas market has three characteristics: Mature e-commerce marketing, strong consumer shopping demand, and openness to international sellers. The data shows that the mature eCommerce market in foreign countries such as the U.S. still has strong cross-border sales and the demand for online shopping.

“The report shows the needs of global consumers and in-depth analysis based on the different geographical scenarios, helping us better understand global consumption and more specific consumer needs,” said Vicky Tang, head of JD.com Overseas.

Aged 28-45 are the main group

According to the study, JD.com’s international cross-border online shoppers can be divided into three groups: First, consumers who work and reside in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and overseas; second, relatively young students who study abroad; and third, local residents of Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and overseas.

From the perspective of user portraits on the JD.com Overseas platform, 28-45-year-old working and resident users are the main consumer groups, and most of them live in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and overseas. The report also shows that 90.9 percent of consumers will search online shopping and product discount-related information on JD.com Overseas.

Chinese-featured products

The report indicated that users are influenced deeply by their online shopping habits when they live in China. Electronic and digital products such as computer/offices and mobile phones are still popular categories among overseas consumers.

In addition, maternal and child products and books are important categories on the platform. In particular, the overseas prices of books are much higher than those in China, so users will choose cross-border online shopping platforms like JD.com Overseas to buy books.

Moreover, during traditional festivals every year, Chinese lanterns, jewelry, cheongsams, and cultural gifts are also favored by overseas Chinese. And the report also shows that specialty Chinese snacks such as spicy strips made of flour, spicy duck tongue, and snail rice noodles are very popular among Hong Kong consumers.

 

hanxiaoqian3@jd.com

by Doris Liu

Canadian retailer Lululemon, originally well-known for its iconic yoga line, officially debuted its digital flagship store on July 18 in the J Shop, JD’s upgrade of its Fashion and Lifestyle business, introducing athletic apparel for not only yoga, but also running, training, and casual wear, among others.

Founded in 1998 with headquarters in Vancouver, Lululemon’s products are developed to make living the “sweat life” comfortable. By turning fitness customers into a “community hub”, the brand is sharing the values of wellness and healthy lifestyles, while also encouraging the setting of life goals.

With the continuous improvement of quality of life in China, sports enthusiasts are growing considerably, as well as their demand for sports equipment consumption. The popularity of Lululemon indicates that the Chinese market not only acknowledges the product quality, but also recognizes the emotional connection it creates between the community and the brand.

Many of Lululemon’s designs are made with exclusive materials and fabrics. Dedicated to continuous research and development based on collaboration with yogis and athletes around the world, Lululemon receives the market feedback in a timely manner, which benefits the new product launch together with its expansion of scenarios.

As “Qi Xi” Festival(on Chinese lunar calendar July 7), often dubbed Chinese Valentine’s Day, falls on August 4 this year, Lululemon also displayed clothes on which is printed the word “love” to enable customers to “express [their] love” on the special day.

The J Shop, with deep integration of JD’s commodity and service capabilities in omni-channel retailing, will continue to help more brands expand their horizons in China and innovate through practice to better accommodate consumers’ needs in the consumption and experience of apparel, lifestyle, cosmetics, sports, luxury fashion, watches and more.

 

(liujun215@jd.com)

by Mengyang He

JD.com welcomed the former Chinese ambassadors to Ecuador, Cuba, and Argentina H.E. Yicong Xu, to Angola H.E. Bolun Zhang, and Timor-Leste H.E. Yuancong Fu at JD’s headquarters in Beijing on July 15.

During the guided tour, the three senior diplomats highly praised JD for its diversified engagement, outstanding customer service, and supply chain capabilities.

“JD.com put forward a great initiative ahead of the Chinese New Year, by working with the Argentine Embassy to China and inviting the ambassador H.E. Gustavo Sabino Vaca Narvaja to my home. I was also delighted to see JD.com has been promoting the bilateral trade relations between China and Argentina,” noted Ambassador Xu. “The visit at JD’s headquarters today opened my mind to the variety of JD’s businesses, ranging from retail, logistics, technology, health, etc.”

Ambassador Zhang said, “it is eye-opening to learn about JD’s international engagement led by JD Worldwide, such as in the Asia Pacific, Europe, and North America.”

“JD.com is nowadays highly connected with people’s livelihood, from an online shopping platform to a telemedicine service provider,” said Ambassador Fu. “As I shop regularly on JD.com, I experience outstanding customer experience and I have also become friends with the JD courier in my neighborhood.” Ambassador Fu is from Suqian, Jiangsu province, the hometown of Richard Liu, founder and Chairman of JD.com. Customers may enjoy special rate offered by JD.com if they want to deliver packages to Suqian, the ambassador happily mentioned his experiences.

 

(hemengyang5@jd.com)

by Doris Liu

Italian luxury brand Fendi kicked off its official flagship store on JD.com on July 15, the ninth high-end fashion brand under the LVMH Group to partner with JD following Louis Vuitton, Dior, Bvlgari, Celine, Loewe, Givenchy, Berluti and Rimowa since April of 2021.

In China, “Double Seven” (lunar calendar July 7, which falls on August 4 this year) is also known as Chinese Valentine’s Day. To observe this occasion, Fendi launched new capsule in line with the sweet feeling, including bags, sneakers, cardigans, earrings, ready-to-wear and accessories. These products are suitable for gifting and are shoppable in the official Fendi flagship store of JD’s app.

To cater to the premium lifestyle needs of JD’s consumers, the store features a page with selected products from the fashion house, offering the most popular items to inspire outfit ideas and everyday fashion.

The pandemic has accelerated China’s digitalization, with the growth rate of online and offline personal luxury goods sales in China forecasted to be 56 and 30 percent respectively, according to the China Luxury Report 2021 released by Bain & Company, a global management consulting firm.

JD Luxury has collaborated with over 300 luxury and premium brands so far, and is facilitating brands with their digitalization progress, while also moving forward with refreshing marketing campaigns, and offering a refined, personalized shopping experience to deliver the desired results for both brands and customers.

 

(liujun215@jd.com)

by Mengyang He

JD Cloud launched 16 tech products during JD.com’s annual tech summit JD Discovery (JDD) held on July 13, where it also showcased JD Cloud’s best practices applied across multiple industries, such as in retail, energy, urban, finance, industrial manufacturing, and more.

With an aim to reinforce the technological capabilities for digitally intelligent supply chain, JD Cloud unveiled its breakthroughs by launching engine, storage platform, and data center-related products, etc., which all fell under the concept of “cost, efficiency, and experience.”

As the industry-leading software and hardware integrated virtual engine, the newly launched product Jing Gang 2.0 can accelerate by unloading virtualization to dedicated hardware, reduce virtualization loss to zero and greatly improve network and storage performance. Its storage IOPS and network forwarding performance can both be improved by 50 percent.

Yunhai, a unified storage platform independently developed based on the separation technology of storage and computing, breaks the limitation of integration of storage and computing, and reduces the cost of computing resources by 30 percent. The software and hardware integration of Jing Gang 2.0 and Yunhai enables the storage performance to improve by 10 times, and it has been fully applied to JD.com’s large-scale complex business scenarios.

Additionally, JD Cloud has been investing heavily in the research and development of data center-related technologies. During the summit, JD Cloud also launched the liquid cooling server, liquid cooling cabinet, and container data center. For example, it takes 3 to 5 days for the on-site installation of the container data center, and the data center’s total costs are reduced by 30 percent.

As of now, JD Cloud has been serving over 80 cities, 1800 large enterprises, and 1.95 million SMEs. “The next step of industrial digitalization is digitally intelligent supply chain. The most efficient way to push forward industrial digitalization is to adopt the mindset of supply chain management,” noted Liqiang Gao, president of JD Cloud.

 

(hemengyang5@jd.com)