Shares of Alibaba Group Holding opened up 7.8 per cent in Hong Kong, after the firm reported strong growth from its artificial intelligence products and ramped up its commitment to the technology.
The Chinese tech giant also saw its New York-listed shares surge 8.2 per cent on Wednesday, closing at US$145.81, after it confirmed that revenues from AI-related products had hit 8.97 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion) in the first quarter.
The company said the segment had now registered triple-digit growth for 11 consecutive quarters.
It expected its annualised recurring revenue from AI models and applications to hit 30 billion yuan by the year’s end, while AI products are projected to generate more than 50 per cent of Alibaba’s cloud-computing revenue within the next year.
Alibaba’s total revenues reached 243.4 billion yuan in the first three months of 2026, missing the Bloomberg consensus estimate of 246.5 billion yuan.
But the firm’s cloud-computing unit continues to serve as a bright spot, posting 38 per cent year-on-year revenue growth to 41.6 billion yuan, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth for the unit.
During an earnings call on Wednesday, CEO Eddie Wu Yongming highlighted the company’s model and application services as primary drivers for cloud profitability, with annualised recurring revenue expected to surpass 10 billion yuan in the year’s second quarter and 30 billion yuan by year’s end.
He added that the firm was likely to “overshoot” its original capital-expenditure target of 380 billion yuan, citing the massive investment required for the buildout of AI data centres.
Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Additional reporting by Ann Cao
