How JD Smart Cloud Is Driving China’s New‑Infrastructure Digital Transformation

JD Smart Cloud’s New Position and Thinking

JD Smart Cloud (京东智联云) was officially launched in March 2023, consolidating JD Cloud, JD AI, and JD IoT under a single brand. It aims to build a socialized cloud service platform based on JD’s "ABCDE" strategy, leveraging the company’s extensive retail, logistics, and digital technology resources.

Fu Qingming, Vice President of JD Group and head of JD Smart Cloud’s basic R&D department, oversees infrastructure R&D and operations, ensuring internal business continuity and providing competitive cloud services to external customers.

Having led early cloud initiatives at Sina (SAE PaaS platform) and later served as CTO at Kingsoft Cloud and LeTV Cloud, Fu brings deep industry experience to JD Smart Cloud’s development.

Key to Digital Transformation: Choosing the Right Partner

Enterprises face challenges in digital and intelligent transformation due to unclear strategies and lack of systematic analysis. Fu emphasizes that selecting a partner aligned with a company’s business strategy is crucial for successful digitization.

He predicts that the Chinese cloud market, currently dominated by IaaS, will increasingly shift toward PaaS and SaaS services, mirroring global trends where higher‑level services generate greater value.

For enterprises, digital transformation entails costs; therefore, a clear understanding of business needs and the right technology partner are essential.

Data Centers in the New‑Infrastructure Era

New‑infrastructure policies accelerate the construction of digital foundations such as 5G, edge computing, and modern data centers. JD Smart Cloud plans to deploy large‑scale data and super‑computing centers nationwide, integrating JD’s e‑commerce, logistics, and digital capabilities to create an intelligent supply‑chain platform.

To date, JD Smart Cloud has established four regions and ten availability zones, with dozens of IDC facilities and plans for self‑built data centers. The company is investing heavily in modular data‑center technology, custom servers, white‑box switches, and AI‑driven management systems.

Fu notes that JD Smart Cloud has already released its first full‑rack server and self‑developed white‑box switch, highlighting the continued investment potential in the high‑barrier, talent‑scarce data‑center market.