Alibaba's cloud business revenue soars 34% driven by AI boom

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HONG KONG (AP) — China’s Alibaba Group posted a 34% jump in revenue from its cloud business in its most recent quarter, buoyed by the boom in artificial intelligence.

But overall revenue at the Chinese tech group for the July-September quarter increased by just 5% year-on-year to 247.8 billion yuan ($35 billion), and profit fell 52% from last year, as a fierce price war in China's e-commerce landscape -- including in the food delivery segment -- eroded into short-term profitability. JD.com, its e-commerce rival, reported a 55% net profit drop in the same quarter.

Alibaba started out in e-commerce and later turned its focus to cloud and AI technologies. Earlier this year, it pledged to invest at least 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) in three years in advancing its cloud computing and AI infrastructure.

CEO Eddie Wu said in prepared remarks Tuesday that the group's “significant” investments in AI had helped its revenue growth. The 34% cloud revenue growth was faster than the 26% increase in the April-June quarter.

The company added that demand for AI was “accelerating” and its “conviction in future AI demand growth is strong.” It also will probably end up investing more than the planned 380 billion yuan in AI to meet surging demand, Alibaba said Tuesday.

On Monday, Alibaba announced that its upgraded AI chatbot Qwen -- which aims to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT -- recorded 10 million downloads in the first week after its public launch.

The company's Hong Kong shares gained 2% Tuesday and just before the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange, shares rose 2.4%. Shares have gained more than 90% so far this year, fueled by optimism over its progress in AI.

Chinese companies have been gaining ground in AI since tech startup DeepSeek upended the industry, raising doubts over the dominance in the sector of its U.S. rivals.

Recent earnings reports by other Chinese tech giants have been mixed.

Tencent, which rivals Alibaba in AI, this month reported a strong 15% year-on-year gain in its revenue for the July-September quarter. But Baidu, which also competes with Alibaba in AI development, recorded a 7% drop in revenue in the same quarter compared to last year.

Concerns among investors and analysts over an overblown AI bubble have also been growing, although strong earnings at Nvidia last week slightly eased worries.