Alibaba pledges $53 bn AI infra spend in 3 years

E-commerce pioneer's target marks one of China's biggest AI infra budgets

- Bloomberg

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd pledged to invest more than 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure such as data centres over the next three years, a major commitment that underscores the e-commerce pioneer's ambitions of becoming a leader in AI.

The internet company co-founded by Jack Ma plans to spend more on its AI and cloud computing network than it has over the past decade. Alibaba envisions becoming a key partner to companies developing and applying AI to the real world as models evolve and need increasing amounts of computing power, the company said on its official blog.

That target marks one of China's biggest AI infrastructure budgets, underscoring Alibaba's growing ambitions in the field. But it comes at a time investors are pondering whether big tech firms are overestimating future demand for AI services, or the capital needed to create them.