(Bloomberg) — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s chief executive officer said the pursuit of artificial general intelligence is now the company’s “primary objective.”
“Our first and foremost goal is to pursue AGI,” Eddie Wu told investors on a call after the company reported results that surpassed analyst estimates. “We aim to continue to develop models that extend the boundaries of intelligence.”
The Chinese technology company built an empire out of e-commerce, and still counts that business — including services such as AliExpress and Taobao — as the core of its operations. But Wu’s remarks signified how influential AI has become across the sector, especially in light of the recent mania over DeepSeek’s lower-cost model.
His reference to AGI — powerful, hypothetical AI systems that could emulate or match human thinking capabilities — is striking in the context of Alibaba’s traditional business. It came alongside a declaration of Alibaba as an AI company. “We want to keep pushing out those boundaries to create more and more opportunities,” Wu added.
Alibaba’s US shares surged as much as 11% in premarket trading after the company’s earnings beat.
Revenue in the company’s cloud business grew 13% last quarter from the same period a year prior, the fastest in two years. That was helped by a triple-digit growth in AI-related products and executives touted more to come.
“The AI era presents a clear and massive demand for infrastructure,” Wu said. Alibaba’s planned investment in cloud and AI infrastructure over the next three years is “set to exceed what we have spent over the past decade.”
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