Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu said Thursday that the Chinese...

Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu said Thursday that the Chinese tech giant aims to generate more than $100 billion in annual cloud computing and AI revenue within the next five years. In the 11 months through February, such revenue at Alibaba stood at about $14.5 billion. Alibaba is counting on AI businesses—such as selling AI models and applications to enterprise users—to accelerate the growth of its overall cloud services revenue. The new target highlights the critical importance of AI-driven cloud growth for Alibaba, especially when the company’s core e-commerce business is stagnant due in part to weak consumer spending in China. That was demonstrated on Thursday, when Alibaba reported that its revenue from e-commerce merchants, known as customer management revenue, rose only 1% in the quarter through December. By contrast, revenue from Alibaba’s cloud revenue grew 35% thanks to rapid adoption of AI-related products, the company said. Earlier this week, Alibaba announced a drastic reorganization, moving all of its major AI businesses under a newly created division managed directly by Wu. He said the reorganization is part of Alibaba’s effort to adapt to the new era of AI development that is driven by the proliferation of AI agents. “We need to achieve a very close integration between AI models and AI applications.” #🇨🇳 ChinA.I. 🤖🧠🦾🤖 https://apnews.com/articl..