Alibaba Group Holding Limited has committed to investing over 380 billion yuan (53 billion US dollars) in artificial intelligence infrastructure such as data centers over the next three years. This significant commitment highlights the ambition of this e-commerce pioneer to become a leader in artificial intelligence.
The Internet company co-founded by Jack Ma plans to invest more in artificial intelligence and cloud computing networks than it has in the past decade. Alibaba stated on its official blog that as models develop and the demand for computing power increases, it hopes to become an important partner for companies developing and applying artificial intelligence to the real world.
Alibaba is reversing the business slump caused by government crackdowns that began in 2020, refocusing on e-commerce and artificial intelligence. Last week, CEO Daniel Zhang announced that general artificial intelligence (AGI) is now its main goal, joining the competition led so far by companies such as OpenAI and US giants like Microsoft and Alphabet Inc.
Large tech companies such as Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon have also committed to investing billions of dollars in building data centers needed for training, developing and hosting AI services, a sign of confidence in the technology’s future. However, Wall Street has begun to question whether there will be enough demand to fill all this capacity, especially after Chinese upstart DeepSeek launched a training model that costs only a fraction of what many of its rivals charge. Microsoft is expected to spend $80 billion on AI data centers this fiscal year, while Meta has set aside about $65 billion for 2025.
Despite this, investors still commend Alibaba’s determination to compete in the field of artificial intelligence. Wu Jihan mentioned that AGI (a powerful, hypothetical artificial intelligence system that can simulate or match human thinking capabilities) stands out in the context of Alibaba’s traditional online retail business.
The CEO of Alibaba Group Holding Limited said that pursuing general artificial intelligence is now the company’s “top priority”.
After the company announced better-than-expected results, Mr. Wu told investors on a conference call: “Our top priority is to pursue AGI. Our goal is to continue developing models that can expand the boundaries of intelligence.”
Meanwhile, Alibaba announced that it is an artificial intelligence company. Wu Jihan added, “We hope to constantly break through these boundaries and create more and more opportunities.”
Wu Jihan said, “The demand for infrastructure in the era of artificial intelligence is obviously huge.” Alibaba plans to invest in cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure over the next three years “more than what we have invested in the past ten years.”
