Alibaba to Invest $52B in AI and Cloud Computing Over Next Three Years

On 24 February 2025, Alibaba announced plans to invest RMB 380 billion (USD 52.4 billion) over the next three years in #AI technologies and #CloudComputing. The decision underscores the company’s commitment to technological innovation and will reinforce its position as a global leader in AI services delivered over the Cloud.

In an earlier earnings call, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu revealed that Alibaba is going after Artificial General Intelligence (#AGI) which promises to give machines quasi-human thinking and reasoning abilities. As AI models evolve and become more powerful, there is a marked trend for AI data and services to be processed and delivered via larger and ubiquitous cloud networks.

The #AI arm of Alibaba experienced triple-digit revenue growth for the past six consecutive quarters while cloud hosting for AI services grew by by double-digit year-on-year.

AI is a once-in-a-generation opportunity and Alibaba is adopting a User-First AI-driven approach to enhance customer experience, optimize business operations, and fuel long-term growth.

Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu

The announcement came right after a remarkable re-appearance of Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma at a high-profile, high-level meeting convened by President XI Jinping with Chinese tech giants with the likes of Huawei, Deepseek, and Unitree on the select guest list.

In 2023, Alibaba launched its own chatbot Tongyi Qianwen (Qwen) similar to OpenAI ChatGPT and Deepseek Chat. Then, at the end of January 2025, it released a new and improved version of Qwen 2.5 to stay in the global AI race.