Alibaba to invest $53B in AI infrastructure in China

Chinese internet company Alibaba Group plans to invest over 380 billion yuan (approximately $53 billion) in building cloud and hardware infrastructure for artificial intelligence, Xinhua News Agency reports.

Chinese Penpai noted that these investments are record-breaking in terms of the volume of investments by private enterprises in China for creating cloud and hardware infrastructure for artificial intelligence.

According to the news agency, Alibaba’s announcement on investment comes amid two significant events. The first is the explosive growth of China’s artificial intelligence industry, and the second is a symposium held in early February on the development of private enterprises, which brought together government officials and was attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

During the symposium on Feb. 17, the Chinese leader stated that the private sector in China has broad prospects for development and significant potential, noting that it is time for private companies to showcase their capabilities. Xi Jinping also called for the promotion of high-quality development of the private sector in the country.

At the end of January, Alibaba Cloud introduced a new AI language model, Qwen 2.5-Max, which the developer claims outperforms the company’s DeepSeek model. Alibaba Group is the largest internet company in China, operating in the e-commerce sector. It was founded by Jack Ma in 1999 and includes several subsidiaries and online platforms, such as Alibaba Pictures, Alibaba.com, AliExpress.com, Taobao.com, and Tmall.com.