NEAR Foundation and Alibaba Cloud Join Forces to Boost Web3 Development in Asia

NEAR Foundation, a non-profit organization responsible for developing the NEAR protocol, has partnered with Alibaba Cloud to facilitate the growth of Web3 in Asia and the Middle East. 

As part of the partnership, NEAR Foundation will gain access to Alibaba Cloud’s developer ecosystem across the aforementioned regions, enabling more developers to create projects on the NEAR protocol, the company revealed in a recent interview. 

Additionally, developers looking to launch a new NEAR validator can do so with Alibaba Cloud’s “plug-and-play” infrastructure. The company will also offer remote procedure calls as a service to developers and users in the NEAR ecosystem. 

Furthermore, Alibaba Cloud will provide multi-chain indexing to offer a data-query application programming interface to developers.

This partnership allows the NEAR Foundation to enhance its position in the rapidly growing Web3 sector, particularly in regions where the sector is still nascent but has significant potential. 

“The NEAR Foundation and Alibaba Cloud partnership is an important one as we continue to support Web3 developers to explore opportunities,” Raymond Xiao, head of international Web3 solutions at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, reportedly said. 

“It is also significant for developers and validators in the Asian markets, as they can leverage Alibaba Cloud’s comprehensive infrastructure in Asia.” 

NEAR Could Get a Boost in China Thanks to Partnership with Alibaba

It is worth noting that NEAR’s popularity is likely to be bolstered by Alibaba Cloud’s immense popularity in China and wider parts of Asia. 

This is specifically true given that the e-commerce giant has recently announced that pro-crypto Joseph Tsai is set to replace long-time chief Daniel Zhang as the new Chairman.

Tsai has been an active investor in the space, participating in fund-raising rounds for now-collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, popular Ethereum scaling solution Polygon, and NFT and metaverse platform Artifact Labs.

The NEAR Foundation’s previous work has been focused on building a range of decentralized applications across a variety of industries, including gaming and finance. 

With the new partnership, NEAR will be able to expand its reach whilst aiming to increase user adoption and facilitate a greater degree of decentralization across the blockchain ecosystem.

Meanwhile, NEAR’s native token saw an 8% surge to $1.57 following the announcement. The token is currently trading at $1.56, up by more than 31% over the past 14 days. 

NEAR’s recent announcements, such as the launch of its Blockchain Operating System (BOS), have helped boost its popularity in the Web3 sector. 

The BOS platform enables developers to interact with other users on the network and build decentralized applications. 

All in all, the NEAR Foundation’s partnership with Alibaba Cloud provides the NEAR protocol with the necessary tools to accelerate Web3 growth in Asia and the Middle East.