Shares in Alibaba climbed premarket in the US and Hong Kong after CEO Eddie Wu said it planned to significantly increase AI spending.
Alibaba (BABA) shares soared in premarket trading on Wednesday after revealing plans to raise investment in artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud infrastructure. The Chinese technology giant is set to ramp up AI spending past its original $50 billion-plus target.
Following the announcement, the company’s Hong Kong-listed shares reached their highest point since 2021. Its stock price rose more than 6%, while total gains for the year now stand at an impressive 107%. In the US, the firm’s shares climbed 9.3% higher in premarket trade.
At Alibaba Cloud’s annual flagship technology conference in China, CEO Eddie Wu said the company aims to increase spending on AI models and infrastructure development. This fresh funding comes on top of the 380 billion yuan ($53 billion), three-year investment it announced back in February.
Wu described the initiative as a long-term commitment to creating world-leading infrastructure for training advanced models and supporting future demand. The move sparked the Hong Kong and US stock rallies, serving to highlight growing confidence in the company’s future direction.
Alibaba outlines future AI growth plans
At the Apsara Conference 2025 on Wednesday, Alibaba introduced its latest Qwen3-Max large language model. It also showcased a suite of other upgrades across its AI offerings. Wu emphasised Alibaba Cloud’s strategic position as a full-stack AI provider, supplying computing power through its extensive global data centres.
Alibaba Cloud will also launch data centres in a host of new countries including Brazil, France, and the Netherlands. Next year, several additional data centres will be set up in Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Dubai to help boost its international cloud network.
Wu projected that global AI investment will exceed $4 trillion within five years, which would represent the largest ever commitment to computing power. He stressed the need for Alibaba to keep pace with this growth by accelerating its own spending and developing far more advanced infrastructure.
Company bosses confirmed that Alibaba is working on new hardware. This includes chips, faster computers, and networking technology designed to support data centre expansion. Earlier this month, it secured a deal with China Unicom, which will deploy Alibaba’s Pingtouge AI accelerators, marking progress towards chip self-sufficiency.
Chinese firms invest big in AI
China’s biggest technology firms have similar commitments to Alibaba in terms of AI development. The likes of Huawei, Tencent, Baidu and JD.com are just some of the big names building competing large language models. Analysts predict that combined spending on AI infrastructure between these major Chinese corporations could surpass $32 billion in 2025 alone.
Meanwhile, Beijing is encouraging the country’s market leaders to move away from Nvidia’s popular AI chips. US export sanctions currently block nearly all the chips from the major American tech firm.
The Chinese government recently urged companies to avoid Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D, a workstation graphics card often repurposed for AI application. By requesting that domestic firms reduce their dependence on American hardware, state officials have pushed companies like Alibaba to develop home-grown chip solutions.
Industry observers believe the heightened investment signals growing confidence in customer demand and future returns. This is despite ongoing concerns around rising capital expenditure. For now, markets remain enthusiastic, viewing the AI race as an opportunity for long-term transformation across economies and tech industries worldwide.
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