Alibaba Cloud, Avalanche partner to deploy metaverse on the blockchain

Image credit: Alibaba Cloud and Ava Labs

Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence division of Alibaba Group, has partnered with tier-1 blockchain Avalanche, the companies exclusively told TechCrunch ahead of an announcement at the Avalanche Summit II conference.

The partnership will provide Alibaba’s customers with a launch pad, Cloudverse, which aims to help businesses customize, launch and maintain their own metaverse spaces on Avalanche’s blockchain.

There is also a third partner, MUA DAO, which is the service layer that will help implement the integration and customization for metaverses, John Wu, president of Ava Labs, told TechCrunch. “To [Alibaba Cloud]their partners are asking to be part of web3,” Wu said. “So we will dedicate resources to make it easy for them to build their own SDKs on top of ours.”

Avalanche has subnets, short for “sub-network”, which are a set of nodes (or validators) that can be built on top of the blockchain. Subnets are application-specific blockchains that can be customized to suit one’s needs on top of a blockchain. This infrastructure will also help create customizable blockchain solutions through Cloudverse.

The ability to launch metaverses quickly and easily can open doors for businesses that don’t have the time or resources to launch these platforms, but want exposure to the space.

“You and I can create a metaverse right now. Within 15 minutes the chain is up; within hours the wallet is up and turnkey,” said Emin Gün Sirer, founder and CEO of Ava Labs. The technology is made “very simple” and all the tools are open source, he added.

Builders on the Cloudverse will receive support for visuals, meta-economy, interactive features, events, business continuity and more, the companies said. Each metaverse room can be ready for business within a month of initial outreach, they added.

This is not the first time the two organizations have teamed up. In December, Alibaba Cloud began providing infrastructure and tools to help Asia-based users launch validators on the Avalanche network. The original iteration provided plug-and-play and node-as-a-service initiatives to help expand blockchain adoption in Asia, the companies said.

Alibaba Cloud has about 4 million customers and 10 million developers, according to John Wu, president of Ava Labs. “It’s a great way for Asian users to manage and validate nodes, and now we’re expanding this partnership with Cloudverse.”

From Alibaba’s perspective, one of the ways to bring the Asian business ecosystem into web3 is through the metaverse, Wu said. “For us, it’s a great way to access 4 million potential builders, and when they come through [Avalanche]there will be tons of transactions in the chain.”