Over the next three years, Alibaba Group has promised to invest 380 million yuan ($53 billion) in AI infrastructure. Its significant commitment shows how much it wants to become the leader in AI.
Alibaba founder claims that a revolution has begun in the development and investment of artificial intelligence (AI) thanks to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. However, nine-tenths of the technology and services that have emerged since could be gone in less than 10 years.
According to Wang Jian, the person who created Alibaba’s current second-largest company from the ground up in 2009, the issue was the United States (US) startup that introduced AI to the public, creating a “bias” or skewed understanding of what AI is capable of. Although it sparked public interest in chatbots, AI has many other applications. He added that developers must cut through the noise and bring out new applications for AI to advance to the next level.
Some developers claim that 90% of AI will disappear in five or ten years, since it is not the core of the technology.
Before joining Alibaba, Wang made his position strong at Microsoft Research Asia. Shortly after joining, he pitched the idea of a computing company to Alibaba’s co-founder, Jack Ma. He claims that he was nervous before pitching because he just had an idea of the computing business becoming famous, but did not have a solid business plan or model to show. Who would tell past Wang that he was right?
Today, Alicloud (also called) is a $16 billion company. It supports Alibaba’s international shipping and e-commerce activities, created the Qwen model, which is part of DeepSeek, and US competitions like GPT and Gemini. Alibaba has all-in on the AI race to build a human-like intelligence.
Over the next three years, Alibaba Group has promised to invest 380 million yuan ($53 billion) in AI infrastructure. Its significant commitment shows how much it wants to become the leader in AI.
The company plans to increase its investment in its AI and cloud computing than it has over the past ten years.
As models evolve and need more processing power, the company hopes to become a key partner to companies developing and applying AI in the real world.
That goal is one of China’s largest budgets for AI infrastructure. However, it comes as investors wonder if large tech companies are overestimating the need for AI in the future or the money required to develop it.
Additionally, Alibaba announced a new pair of smart glasses driven by AI models.
The company stated that Qwark AI Glasses will be introduced in China by the end of 2025, with hardware driven by the company’s Qwen big language model and its advanced AI assistant called Quark.
The Hangzhou-based company introduced new models with features including those of OpenAI.
Several tech companies believe that wearables, specifically glasses, will be the next big thing in computing alongside smartphones. Alibaba is entering the hardware market to expand the app more widely.
The US and China are investing billions of dollars to develop technology that might boost economies and, in the long run, shift the balance of geopolitical power.
US President Donald Trump signed executive orders to make sure companies like Google and OpenAI help preserve America’s dominance in the post-ChatGPT era.
Looking back at the last 20 years, Wang admits that he never anticipated the current AI revolution to occur so quickly. He just envisioned computing being vital as electricity or oil.
As for China, Wang is adamant that the country will continue to be the hub for innovation, given that it is home to one of the world’s largest technological labs.