As advancements in AI technology drive profound industrial transformation, Alibaba Group Holding plans to scale up investments in artificial intelligence over the next three years, including infrastructure for AI and cloud computing, and AI foundation models and native applications, while also transforming its existing businesses with AI. As there is clear and massive demand for infrastructure in this AI era, the company is going to aggressively invest in AI infrastructure, Wu Yongming, CEO of Alibaba Group, said in an earnings call with investors: “Our planned investment in cloud and AI infrastructure over the next three years is set to exceed what we have spent over the past decade.” Wu noted that the company will increase investment in the research and development (R&D) of AI applications and computing power, and deeply integrate AI across its businesses to capture new growth opportunities in the AI era. “Looking ahead, we are confident in our focused strategy on e-commerce and AI plus cloud,” he said.
Wu’s remarks came after Alibaba reported revenue of CNY280.15 billion during the October-December period, an increase of 8% year-on-year, with net income reaching CNY46.43 billion, surging 333% year-on-year. For the quarter ending on December 31, revenue from the company's cloud business rose 13% year-on-year to CNY31.7 billion, with AI-related product revenue achieving triple-digit growth for the sixth consecutive quarter. “This quarter’s results demonstrated substantial progress in our ‘user first, AI-driven’ strategies and the reaccelerated growth of our core businesses,” Wu said, adding that revenue growth at the Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group driven by AI will continue to improve. Wu emphasized that the company will continue to focus on three business categories, namely, domestic and international e-commerce, AI and cloud computing, as well as internet platforms. Moreover, Wu said they will soon release a deep reasoning model built on its large language model Qwen 2.5-Max.
Revenue from Alibaba’s core e-commerce business, namely its Taobao and Tmall platforms, rose 5% year-on-year to CNY136.1 billion during the period. Jiang Han, Senior Analyst at market consultancy Pangoal, said Alibaba’s cloud computing business has returned to double-digit growth and has become an important engine driving its overall revenue growth. It also highlighted that the company has a strong competitive advantage in the AI and cloud services sector, with its investments and layout in AI achieving remarkable results, the China Daily reports.
