Alibaba to ramp up AI, cloud investments as quarterly profit surges
Ann Cao in Shanghai and Ben Jiang in Beijing Published: 7:18pm, 20 Feb 2025 Updated: 10:05pm, 20 Feb 2025 Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding saw profit surge 239 per cent cent in the December quarter to beat analysts' estimates, as the company's cloud computing services unit posted strong growth. 'This quarter's results demonstrated substantial progress in our 'user first, AI-driven' strategies and the re-accelerated growth of our core businesses,' said Eddie Wu Yongming , chief executive of Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post. In a conference call with analysts, Wu said Alibaba plans to 'aggressively invest' in artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing infrastructure over the next three years, which is expected to exceed what the group has spent over the past decade in building its capabilities related to these technologies.
'We are excited by the business opportunities being unlocked by this new technology cycle,' he said.
Alibaba's shares in New York were up 11 per cent in pre-market trading after the company reported its latest financial results. The Hangzhou -based tech conglomerate on Thursday reported that profit reached 48.9 billion yuan (US$6.7 billion) during the quarter, from 14.4 billion yuan a year ago, primarily on the back of 'the increase in income from operations, mark-to-market changes from our equity investments, and the increase in share of results of equity method investees', Alibaba said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Trump tariffs challenge Asean's unity and economic stability
When US President Donald Trump 's tariff chaos eventually calms, its long-lasting consequences will significantly affect the area just south of China and east of India – Southeast Asia – and its organisational bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( Asean ). Trump's focus on protectionism is likely to replace uniform tariffs with varying import taxes for different countries. This shift could create divisive and harmful effects for Southeast Asia and Asean, which are interchangeable but distinct, fostering competition rather than enhancing cooperation among their economies. The time has come to think of this central Indo-Pacific neighbourhood more as a Southeast Asian region and less as an Asean organisation of production networks and global supply chains. To be sure, Trump's unilateral tariffs across Washington's geoeconomic chessboard pose a critical test for Asean. The Southeast Asian grouping has weathered many geopolitical and geoeconomic storms in its 58-year existence, but few are as serious as the Trump tariffs. Asean risks facing further division, reduction, and irrelevance unless it can reorganise and unite. Over the last 13 years, Asean has already faced complicated divisions due to the US-China rivalry , Beijing's aggressive actions in the South China Sea , Myanmar's 2021 coup and subsequent civil war, along with Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The responses of Asean member states to these challenges have varied.
.jpg%3Fitok%3DxzH4i0ZA&w=3840&q=100)
South China Morning Post
3 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
How Hangzhou's ‘Six Little Dragons' built a new Chinese tech hub
Read more: Hangzhou is rapidly gaining recognition as a leading technology centre in China, primarily because of the rise of local start-ups known as the 'Six Little Dragons'. One of the hottest new companies is DeepSeek, which captured global attention in early 2025 with its cost-efficient artificial intelligence (AI) models. The other 'dragons' include robotics firms Unitree and Deep Robotics, video game studio Game Science, brain-machine interface innovator BrainCo, and 3D interior design software developer Manycore. The cluster of hi-tech companies forming in Hangzhou is no coincidence. The city is already home to Zhejiang University and Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post. It attracts talent from across the country, and its business-friendly policies have nurtured many start-ups.
Asia Times
20 hours ago
- Asia Times
World's most powerful ex-New Yorker gets a DC military parade
Donald Trump's plan for a military parade on June 14, 2025, officially to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army as well as coinciding with the president's 79th birthday, is yet another indication of his affinity for authoritarian leaders and regimes. Although the parade, which will include 6,000 soldiers, 150 military vehicles and 50 helicopters − and will temporarily close Reagan National Airport and cost more than US$45 million − is ostensibly to celebrate the military, the idea is pure Trump. When pressed about his desire for the parade, the president has explained his reasoning for having the parade. 'We had more to do with winning World War II than any other nation. Why don't we have a Victory Day? So we're going to have a Victory Day for World War I and for World War II.' While big military parades in Washington, D.C., other than immediately following a major military victory, are largely without precedent, there is another American city that has a much richer tradition of parades. That city is New York. New York is a parade town. It's also a city with which Trump has a long, complex relationship. Trump was born in New York and began his business career there. Before Trump was a politician, or even a reality TV star, he was a fixture in the New York tabloids. His marriages, divorces, dating life and business successes and failures were splashed across more headlines than can be easily counted beginning in the early 1980s, but Trump was always presented as a clownish figure, albeit a very rich one. In those years, continuing into the first decade of this century, the local media always presented him as gaudy, loud and not quite as business savvy as he claimed – hence the coverage of his bankruptcies. While much of the rest of the country bought the Trump narrative that he was a brilliant businessman surrounded by beautiful women, doting staff and fawning celebrities, many New Yorkers never did. New Yorkers, including me, remembered an earlier Trump who almost ran the family business into the ground over many years. Nonetheless, New York has always been important to Trump. Although he still is a well-done steak with ketchup kind of guy, while New York is a soup dumplings, or bagels and lox, or arroz con pollo, or even caviar kind of town, Trump still has a connection to this city and wants to be celebrated here. And the city celebrates with big parades honoring everything from sports championships, which used to be much more common for New York teams, to the U.S. winning wars, most recently following the first Gulf War in 1991. Additionally, New York has parades for many of the hundreds of ethnic groups that make up the city. For decades on Thanksgiving Day, as they roast their turkey, prepare the stuffing and finalize preparations for the traditional feast, millions of Americans have watched the Thanksgiving parade, which is always held in Manhattan, frequently referred to as the Macy's Day parade because Macy's has long sponsored the event. In many of New York City's legendary parades, including those celebrating LGBTQ+ pride, the Puerto Rican Day Parade, St. Patrick's Day, West Indian American Day and others, politicians march, often in the lead, alongside their constituents. Some, like the Thanksgiving parade, have their own rituals, such as watching the balloons being inflated behind the American Museum of Natural History on the evening before Thanksgiving. However, the most famous of all parade types in New York is the ticker-tape parade. Dating from the days when paper, not computers, dominated trading floors and offices, people would throw ticker tape and other papers out their windows as the parade passed through the Financial District area that became known as the Canyon of Heroes. Not all New York parades are the same. Some, like the Thanksgiving parade, are simply fun and celebratory. Ticker-tape parades honor individuals or groups that have accomplished something significant, like landing on the Moon or winning the Super Bowl. They can recognize important foreign guests and dignitaries, while other parades celebrate the contributions of various peoples or groups of New Yorkers. But New Yorkers never throw parades for their politicians and tend to favor drums and floats rather than tanks and soldiers at these events. An avalanche of confetti rains down on Aug. 13, 1969, honoring the three astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission, who became the first people to walk on the Moon. Bettman/Getty Images While there are parades for all kinds of people and events in New York, there has never been a parade there for Donald Trump. There was a pretty massive street party in the city when it was announced that Trump had lost the 2020 election. Although Trump changed his primary residence to Florida in 2019, Trump was a New Yorker for many years and like many longtime residents had the chance to see many heroes – Mickey Mantle, John Glenn, Tom Seaver, Derek Jeter, Eli Manning, Nelson Mandela, American war veterans, numerous foreign leaders and many others – feted with a parade down the Canyon of Heroes. Jeter was celebrated five times, John Glenn and Mickey Mantle twice. It is impossible to know Trump's motivations for pushing the parade in the nation's capital. But we also know that he is a man who holds himself in high regard and craves attention. Trump will likely never get a parade in his erstwhile hometown, so Washington must be the next best thing. Trump's newfound parade fetish underscores his love-hate relationship with New York. New York is the city that made him famous and made his family, primarily because of his father's work, very rich. It is also the city that has repeatedly rejected Trump. It is the home of some of his worst real estate deals, the place where the business community lost patience with his antics and unwillingness to pay contractors, and where three times the voters turned out in huge numbers against him. A Washington, D.C., parade celebrating an unappreciated New Yorker who years ago decamped to Florida and Washington is a pale imitation of the Canyon of Heroes, where New Yorkers honor beloved leaders, war heroes, explorers and their favorite sports stars. But it is all Trump has. Lincoln Mitchell is a lecturer, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
