Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s quarterly earnings report showed that the Chinese technology conglomerate’s artificial-intelligence developments are gaining steam.
Alibaba’s American depositary receipts surged 13% on Friday.
Alibaba missed consensus revenue estimates for its first quarter of fiscal 2026, reporting $34.6 billion of sales, compared with the $35.2 billion FactSet estimate, for a 2% year-over-year increase. But the company’s net income for the quarter blew past expectations. Alibaba posted net income of $5.9 billion, a 76% year-over-year increase and above the $3.7 billion consensus view. Adjusted earnings came out to $2.06 per share, above consensus of $1.97 but representing a 10% decline from the previous year.
The drastic year-over-year rise in net income was driven by gains from equity investments and the sale of Turkish e-commerce company Trendyol, according to the company.
The company’s cloud-intelligence business was the fastest-growing segment, contributing $4.7 billion to total revenue for a 26% year-over-year increase. E-commerce, Alibaba’s largest business segment, posted revenue of $12.5 billion, a 10% increase from the previous year.
Similar to the Magnificent Seven group of megacap tech names, Alibaba is ramping up its capital expenditures for AI development. The company reported investments into its cloud infrastructure of 38.6 billion yuan(equivalent to $5.4 billion) for the quarter. On the earnings call, Alibaba Chief Executive Eddie Wu reaffirmed the company’s three-year commitment to invest $380 billion yuan ($53 billion) to build out its cloud and AI infrastructure.
Alibaba’s heavy focus on its cloud business shows that the Chinese company is keen to innovate and stay competitive in the global race to develop AI.
Trade-war tensions and geopolitical and national-security concerns have made the use of Nvidia Corp.’s chips in China contested, and China is working on creating its own AI tech stack independent of the U.S. The Wall Street Journal reported that Alibaba has developed a new chip that it’s now testing and that could be a domestic replacement for Nvidia’s H20.
Alibaba’s U.S.-listed stock is up 40% year to date but has experienced volatility since trade-war tensions spiked in April.
