TLDR
- Alibaba stock jumped 8-10% to four-year highs after announcing increased AI spending beyond its $53 billion commitment
- Company partnered with Nvidia to develop physical AI capabilities including data synthesis and model training
- Unveiled Qwen3-Max AI model with over 1 trillion parameters, claiming superior performance to competitors
- Plans to open new data centers in Brazil, France, Netherlands and other countries, expanding from current 91 facilities
- Cloud revenue grew 26% year-over-year as AI and cloud become key growth drivers alongside e-commerce
Alibaba stock surged to its highest level in nearly four years after the Chinese e-commerce giant announced major AI investments and a partnership with Nvidia. The company’s US-listed shares jumped 8% while Hong Kong-listed shares rose nearly 10%.
CEO Eddie Wu spoke at Alibaba’s annual Apsara Conference in Hangzhou, China on Wednesday. He said the company will spend more on AI than its February commitment of over $53 billion across three years. Wu did not specify the exact amount of the increased investment.
“The speed of AI industry development has far exceeded our expectations,” Wu told attendees. He said worldwide AI investment could reach $4 trillion over the next five years. Alibaba must keep pace with this rapid growth.
The company announced a software partnership with Nvidia to develop physical AI capabilities. This includes data synthesis, model training, environmental simulation and validation testing. The deal focuses on AI development tools used for robotics and self-driving cars.
Alibaba announced a partnership with Nvidia, global data center expansion plans and new artificial intelligence products, as it positions AI as a core business priority alongside its traditional e-commerce operation https://t.co/rmHIuUpycJ pic.twitter.com/xnsUiU2czM
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 24, 2025
Financial terms of the Nvidia partnership were not disclosed. The agreement comes as US-China trade relations remain tense and Chinese companies work to reduce dependence on American chips.
New AI Model Launches
Alibaba unveiled its largest AI language model called Qwen3-Max at the conference. The model contains over 1 trillion parameters, which are variables that determine how AI systems process information.
Zhou Jingren, Alibaba Cloud’s chief technology officer, said the model shows particular strength in code generation. It also has autonomous agent capabilities that require fewer human prompts than chatbots like ChatGPT.
The company claims Qwen3-Max outperformed competitors including Anthropic’s Claude and DeepSeek-V3.1 in certain benchmarks. Alibaba cited third-party testing such as Tau2-Bench to support these claims.
Alibaba also launched Qwen3-Omni, a multimodal system that handles text, images, audio and video. This open-source model targets virtual and augmented reality applications like smart glasses and intelligent car cockpits.
Global Data Center Expansion
The company announced plans to open its first data centers in Brazil, France and the Netherlands. Additional facilities are planned for Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Dubai over the coming year.
This expansion will grow Alibaba’s current network from 91 data centers across 29 regions worldwide. The company did not specify whether new facilities would use Nvidia chips.
Alibaba’s cloud unit serves clients in the US, Australia and other international markets. The global expansion aims to capture more international AI developers and enterprise users.
Cloud revenue grew 26% year-over-year in Alibaba’s most recent quarter. Wu described AI and cloud as the company’s growth engines alongside its core e-commerce business.
The stock has risen over 110% year-to-date as investors focus on cloud computing growth. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest bought more than $16 billion in Alibaba shares on Monday, the first purchase since 2021.
Alibaba faces intense competition from local Chinese AI companies including DeepSeek and Tencent. American tech giants Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta plan to invest a combined $364 billion in AI during their 2025 fiscal years.
The company’s pre-market trading showed shares down 1.23% to $174.30 as of Thursday morning, following Wednesday’s gains.
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