Founded on October 11th, 2017, Alibaba DAMO Academy is dedicated to exploring the unknown through scientific and technological research and innovation. The driving force behind the Academy is the pursuit of the betterment of humanity.

Over the next two decades, Alibaba Group’s goal is to become the world's fifth-largest economy by creating 100 million jobs worldwide, serving 2 billion people, and maintaining a profitable platform for 10 million companies. However, achieving these goals and serving the global economy requires solving countless challenges. The Alibaba DAMO Academy was founded to address these challenges through the philosophy of "research for solving problems with profit and fun".

Jack Ma, has laid out a framework of three guiding principles for the development of the academy : "DAMO must outlive Alibaba" , "It must serve at least 2 billion people worldwide" , "DAMO must be future-oriented and use technology to solve the challenges of the future".