Alibaba moves London tech headquarters to Canary Wharf
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has moved its London headquarters from Mayfair to Canary Wharf as the Docklands continues to develop as a rival tech hub to Old Street.
Alibaba, which raised a record $25bn (£15.9bn) when it went public in September, is now based on Level 28 of the iconic One Canada Square, just below Canary Wharf’s financial technology (FinTech) startup incubator Level39.
The Mayor of London Boris Johnson last week backed Canary Wharf Group’s plans to redevelop the area to the east of the site, known as Wood Wharf, with up to 3,610 new homes, 1.9m square metres of office space and 35,000 square metres of retail floorspace, along with a community centre and a network of public squares.
Much of the new office space being built will be specifically designed to accommodate the technology, media and telecoms companies, as well as financial and professional services firms.
In October, Canary Wharf Group launched a startup accelerator programme Cognicity, in partnership with Intel, to find six so-called smart city technologies. These would drive cost savings using technology in fields such as transport, construction and waste management to be piloted across its new estate.