Wu made his projections while outlining plans to roll out Qwen models and “full-stack” AI technology, reflecting Alibaba’s growing ambitions to both develop services and the infrastructure — such as chips — that underpin the technology. Its shares rose as much as 9.7% in Hong Kong, helping lift Chinese chipmakers ACM Research (Shanghai) Inc 15% and Naura Technology Group Co 10%.
Alibaba Group Holding’s shares surged to their highest in nearly four years after revealing plans to ramp up AI spending past an original US$50 billion-plus target, joining tech leaders pledging ever-greater sums toward a global race for technological breakthroughs.
Chief Executive Officer Eddie Wu anticipates overall investment in artificial intelligence accelerating to some US$4 trillion worldwide over the next five years — and Alibaba needs to keep up. The company will soon add to a plan laid out in February to spend more than 380 billion yuan developing AI models and infrastructure over three years, he said. His cloud division, which already operates services from the US to Australia, intends to launch its first data centres in Brazil, France and the Netherlands in the coming year.
