Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has announced a $53 billion investment over the next three years to strengthen its artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.
The move positions the company in direct competition with Microsoft, Meta, Google and OpenAI, all of which have dedicated billions of dollars to advancing AI technologies.
Alibaba’s Chief Executive Officer, Eddie Wu, recently stated that the company’s primary focus is now on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), a vision of AI that can reason and learn in a way that mimics human cognition.
“As some of you may be aware, we have since digitised our manufacturing and sales processes through the deployment of automated and smart systems, particularly in our cement plants,” Wu said.
The investment underscores Alibaba’s ambition to become a major global AI player, leveraging its cloud computing capabilities to develop next-generation AI models.
However, the company faces mounting challenges, including U.S. restrictions on semiconductor exports, which have limited China’s access to high-performance AI chips produced by Nvidia.
Despite these constraints, Alibaba has accelerated its AI expansion, directing resources toward leading Chinese AI startups Moonshot and Zhipu.
The company’s own AI model, Qwen, has also performed strongly in benchmark tests, signaling its growing competitiveness in the field.
Alibaba’s aggressive push into AI comes at a critical moment for the company. Over the past few years, it has faced regulatory scrutiny from Beijing with Chinese authorities imposing tighter controls on the country’s largest tech firms.
After a period of restructuring, Alibaba now appears to be regaining favor with the government. Last week, co-founder Jack Ma attended a televised business summit hosted by President Xi Jinping, a move seen as a sign of improving relations.
Beyond AI, Alibaba’s cloud division—a core pillar of its technological expansion—has been working to regain customer trust after regulatory pressures led to a decline in market share. As part of its strategy, the company has reduced cloud service prices and is expanding its data center footprint to support its AI ambitions.
While Alibaba is making a bold bet on AI, it remains a relative newcomer compared to Microsoft, which plans to invest $80 billion in AI this fiscal year, and Meta, which has allocated $65 billion for 2025.
The company has, however, seen a resurgence in market value, clawing back $100 billion this year, though it remains far below its pre-regulation peak.
With AI as its new frontier, Alibaba is positioning itself to outthink, outbuild and outspend the competition, cementing its role in the global AI race.
