Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu teased plans to boost AI and cloud infrastructure capex above the CNY380 billion ($53.4 billion) level it committed to spending over the next three years in February, Bloomberg reported.

Speaking at a developer conference in Hangzhou, Wu reportedly said demand for AI infrastructure and the speed of industry development “far exceeded our anticipation”.

The pending hike comes after the e-commerce giant tripled capex to $10 billion in 2024.

Reuters reported the company plans to open data centres in Brazil, France and Netherlands, and will add facilities in Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Dubai over the coming year. Nearly half of its 27 data centres are in China.

On its fiscal Q1 2026 (ending 30 June) earnings call, Wu explained the transformative impact of AI on all industries “represents the most significant opportunity in the technology sector over the next decade”. He said Alibaba has the world’s fourth largest and Asia’s leading cloud infrastructure.

Cloud revenue grew 26 per cent year-on-year to CNY33.4 billion, with AI-related product sales maintaining a triple-digit growth for an eighth consecutive quarter.

Alibaba officially released its new Qwen3-Max large language model at the event, offering 1 trillion parameters.

The company announced plans to raise $3.2 billion earlier this month, with funding cloud infrastructure a key focus.