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

HONG KONG (AP) — China’s Alibaba Group posted a 34% leap successful gross from its unreality concern successful its astir caller quarter, buoyed by the roar successful artificial intelligence.

But wide gross astatine the Chinese tech radical for the July-September 4th accrued by conscionable 5% year-on-year to 247.8 cardinal yuan ($35 billion), and nett fell 52% from past year, arsenic a fierce terms warfare successful China's e-commerce scenery -- including successful the nutrient transportation conception -- eroded into short-term profitability. JD.com, its e-commerce rival, reported a 55% nett net driblet successful the aforesaid quarter.

Alibaba started retired successful e-commerce and aboriginal turned its absorption to unreality and AI technologies. Earlier this year, it pledged to put astatine slightest 380 cardinal yuan ($53 billion) successful 3 years successful advancing its unreality computing and AI infrastructure.

CEO Eddie Wu said successful prepared remarks Tuesday that the group's “significant” investments successful AI had helped its gross growth. The 34% unreality gross maturation was faster than the 26% summation successful the April-June quarter.

The institution added that request for AI was “accelerating” and its “conviction successful aboriginal AI request maturation is strong.” It besides volition astir apt extremity up investing much than the planned 380 cardinal yuan successful AI to conscionable surging demand, Alibaba said Tuesday.

On Monday, Alibaba announced that its upgraded AI chatbot Qwen -- which aims to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT -- recorded 10 cardinal downloads successful the archetypal week aft its nationalist launch.

The company's Hong Kong shares gained 2% Tuesday and conscionable earlier the opening doorbell connected the New York Stock Exchange, shares roseate 2.4%. Shares person gained much than 90% truthful acold this year, fueled by optimism implicit its advancement successful AI.

Chinese companies person been gaining crushed successful AI since tech startup DeepSeek upended the industry, raising doubts implicit the dominance successful the assemblage of its U.S. rivals.

Recent net reports by different Chinese tech giants person been mixed.

Tencent, which rivals Alibaba successful AI, this period reported a beardown 15% year-on-year summation successful its gross for the July-September quarter. But Baidu, which besides competes with Alibaba successful AI development, recorded a 7% driblet successful gross successful the aforesaid 4th compared to past year.

Concerns among investors and analysts implicit an overblown AI bubble person besides been growing, though beardown net astatine Nvidia past week somewhat eased worries.