Alibaba Cloud helps Chinese students, foreign schools scale Great Firewall

The service allows students to access content from foreign universities stored in or streamed through the cloud without latency. It also offers a VPN-like experience when students browse the web for content relevant only to their studies. — Reuters

HONG KONG: China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is seizing on a new business opportunity thrown up by the novel coronavirus: helping foreign universities skirt China’s stringent Internet controls to keep classes going for their mainland Chinese students.

Many Chinese students returned home after the virus prompted campuses to shut and have difficulty watching livestreamed tutorials or accessing class materials due to the so-called Great Firewall. That not only blocks websites the government deems sensitive – such as Alphabet Inc’s Google – but can also slow loading speeds of accessible overseas-based sites.