China’s Alibaba reports 38% jump in AI and cloud revenue as it races to grow
China’s Alibaba reports 38% jump in AI and cloud revenue as it races to grow
Publish Date: 2026-05-13 10:07:00
Source Domain: www.audacy.com
- Alibaba’s AI and cloud businesses saw accelerated growth in the latest quarter, with a 38% increase in revenue from its Cloud Intelligence Group.
- Despite strong growth in AI and cloud sectors, overall revenue rose only 3% to 243 billion yuan ($36 billion).
- Alibaba recorded an 848 million yuan ($125 million) operational loss for the quarter, contrasting sharply with a profit of 28.5 billion yuan in the same period last year.
- Rising technological investments to support the booming AI demand and cloud infrastructure are significantly affecting profitability.
- Alibaba plans to invest at least 380 billion yuan over three years in cloud computing and AI infrastructure, aiming to surpass $100 billion in annual AI and cloud revenue within the next five years.
- The company integrated its flagship Qwen AI app with its e-commerce platform Taobao, allowing natural conversation for browsing, comparing, ordering, and managing deliveries, intending to drive up demand.
- Alibaba launched an “agentic” AI tool called Wukong in March to expand products for commercial customers and raised prices for some AI services.
- Competitors like Tencent are also focusing heavily on AI investments, though recent financial results showed expectations were not fully met despite a net profit rise of 21%.
