Alibaba Group Holding Ltd shares surged nearly 15% in Hong Kong on Aug 29, their biggest intraday jump since February, after the company reported booming revenue from artificial intelligence (AI) services and stronger-than-expected cloud sales.
Bloomberg reported that China’s e-commerce giant said AI-related product revenue grew by triple digits, while its cloud division posted a 26% sales increase, underscoring its progress in the country’s race to commercialise AI following DeepSeek’s advances.
The results helped ease investor concerns about intensifying competition with JD.com and Meituan in food delivery and instant commerce, which has sparked a bruising price war. While Alibaba’s overall revenue rose just 2% and operating income fell, its AI momentum set it apart from rivals, whose earnings have been hit harder.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley called Alibaba “China’s best AI enabler thesis”, pointing to its cloud strength and heavy investments in large language models and generative AI tools. CEO Eddie Wu has declared artificial general intelligence the company’s long-term goal.
Still, investors remain watchful over whether Alibaba will keep spending aggressively on quick commerce, a costly but fast-growing business that lifted Taobao’s users by 20% last quarter.
