Large-Scale Cloud‑Edge Collaborative Key Technologies and Applications Based on Cloud‑Native Architecture Wins Zhejiang Province 2023 Scientific and Technological Progress Award

On November 22, the Zhejiang Province 2023 Scientific and Technological Progress Awards announced that the project “Large‑Scale Cloud‑Edge Collaborative Key Technologies and Applications Based on Cloud‑Native Architecture,” jointly developed by Alipay, Zhejiang University, Xieyun Technology, and Alibaba Cloud, won the first‑class award.

The project provides a comprehensive cloud‑edge collaborative computing platform, addressing the unified management and scheduling of massive heterogeneous devices, enhancing elasticity, real‑time performance, and enabling peak‑shaving and valley‑filling capabilities.

After three years of research, the team introduced memory‑optimisation and non‑intrusive trimming techniques for lightweight containers, asynchronous node‑ and service‑management methods, and achieved support for up to one million cloud‑edge nodes per cluster, improving system resource utilisation by 6 percentage points; the work resulted in 20 patents, 32 high‑impact papers, and the formulation of one national standard.

The evaluation committee highlighted the project's high difficulty, strong innovation, and its major significance for advancing key technologies and autonomous controllability, confirming its international‑leading level.

Alipay’s contribution focused on a large‑scale node‑management controller, service‑auto‑profiling for complex scenarios, and multi‑metric‑based cloud‑edge capacity planning, which not only stabilised Alipay’s services but also advanced the payment industry’s technical capabilities.

The solution has been widely applied in payments, finance, government, healthcare, and international events, saving Alipay approximately 16.9 billion CNY from 2020‑2022, supporting over 7 billion user experiences in Ant Forest, and enabling simultaneous online ignition for over 100 million digital torchbearers at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games.

Key components such as the security container technology Kata Containers have been open‑sourced and recognised by the Open Infra Foundation as a top‑level project, fostering industry collaboration.