Alibaba commits US$53 billion for AI infrastructure in largest private computing project

Name: China’s Alibaba releases new AI model, said to outperform competitors Deepseek and OpenAI’s GPT-4o
Uploaded: 2025-02-24T04:30:09.000Z
Duration: 1 min 20 s
Description: China’s Alibaba releases new AI model, said to outperform competitors Deepseek and OpenAI’s GPT-4o

The spending over the next three years is more than half the US$100 billion the US plans for its Stargate project

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Alibaba’s AI models have captured global attention as Apple and open-source developers have flocked to the technology. Photo: Reuters

Ann Caoin Shanghai

Published: 12:30pm, 24 Feb 2025Updated: 1:08pm, 24 Feb 2025

Alibaba Group Holding will invest at least 380 billion yuan (US$52.4 billion) in its cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure over the next three years, in China’s largest-ever computing project financed by a single private business, the company announced on Monday in a show of commitment to AI.

The planned outlay exceeds Alibaba’s total spending on AI infrastructure over the past decade and matches half of the initial US$100 billion investment in the Stargate AI plan promoted by the US.

In a conference call with analysts last week, CEO Eddie Wu Yongming said the company plans to “aggressively invest” in AI and cloud computing infrastructure over the next three years.

Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post, has said the plans underscore its “focus on AI-driven growth and its role as a leading global cloud provider”.

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China’s Alibaba releases new AI model, said to outperform competitors Deepseek and OpenAI’s GPT-4o

Alibaba’s investment plan has grabbed national attention amid a national frenzy to apply AI following the popularity of DeepSeek’s models in recent months. The official Xinhua news agency on Monday first reported Alibaba’s investment plan.