Two men chat beside a logo of Alibaba at its headquarters on the outskirts of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. [Photo/Agencies]

XI'AN - China's e-commerce giant Alibaba will set up a northwest headquarters in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, to better support the development of western China and the Belt and Road Initiative.

The decision was announced by Ma Yun, Alibaba's chairman, during the World Xi'an Entrepreneurs Convention on Saturday, according to a press release given by Alibaba.

It cited Ma as saying that Xi'an is an important city in Northwest China and the starting point of ancient Silk Road. Alibaba looks forward to be involved in the city's development.

Cainiao Network Technology, Alibaba's courier aggregator, will increase its investment in Xi'an to boost economic restructuring and transformation of northwestern areas, the press release said.

Aliyun, Alibaba's cloud computing subsidiary, and Xi'an Jiaotong University will establish a big data college to train talent, it said.

On Thursday, Alibaba said that its net profit jumped 96 percent to more than 14 billion yuan ($2.1 billion) year on year in the first fiscal quarter ending June. The group's revenue was about 50 billion yuan in the quarter, up 56 percent year on year.