The AI Battlefield in the Real World: Why Are Top Global Companies Choosing to Collaborate with Alibaba?

Author | Little Cat

Editor | Hard AI

Today, global leading automobile manufacturer BMW officially announced a strategic AI cooperation with Alibaba, which undoubtedly represents another important recognition of Alibaba's AI technology strength by a global leading enterprise.

At the same time, China Mobile, one of the three major telecommunications operators in China, also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Alibaba. The two parties will jointly build a new AI industry ecosystem based on new forces such as cloud, computing power, and large models.

The choices of these market-leading companies not only reflect a dual recognition of Alibaba's "AI + Cloud" technological strength and business model but also highlight Alibaba's unique value positioning in the era of industrial AI.

As these industry leaders increasingly engage in AI cooperation with Alibaba, the market has higher expectations for Alibaba's AI commercialization process. Hard AI has previously discussed that when Alibaba's AI and cloud computing capital expenditures (Capex) become the focus of the capital market, Chinese tech stocks will usher in a true AI-themed market.

Now, with more and more leading companies in various industries starting to implement AI cooperation projects, it marks that commercialization is accelerating, and the investment logic of AI themes is transitioning from concept to a more substantial development stage. For Alibaba, the AI-driven strategy and future growth prospects are becoming clearer.

Alibaba's Advantages in the AI Era

Alibaba's growth in market share and technological breakthroughs in the AI field, attracting the favor of numerous industry giants, did not happen overnight but stemmed from its long-term technological accumulation and forward-looking layout in industry development direction.

The foundation of its AI strength can be summarized as its early embrace of open source, unwavering implementation of the "AI + Cloud" strategy, and early and continuous exploration of large models. This has translated into three key advantages for Alibaba in the AI field: first, adherence to open source, promoting the development of the technology ecosystem; second, deep integration of AI and cloud computing, forming technological synergy and growth flywheel; third, accumulation of rich computing resources and data processing capabilities before the arrival of the large model era.

First, as early as the initial stages of artificial intelligence technology development, Alibaba demonstrated an open embrace, actively engaging in the open-source community, contributing to and benefiting from the open-source ecosystem. Its open-source Tongyi Qianwen (Qwen) series of large models, with outstanding performance and a wide range of application scenarios, has become one of the largest AI open-source model families globally, with over 100,000 derivative models.

Since the beginning of this year, Alibaba has successively released the Qwen2 series models, QwQ-32B inference model, and Wan2.1 video generation model, continuously validating its technological strength. Notably, the Qwen2.5-Max model has performed outstandingly in multiple benchmark tests, standing alongside leading models like DeepSeek, proving Alibaba's comprehensive strength in AI infrastructure and algorithm development.

Second, at the strategic level, Alibaba established the core development direction of "AI + Cloud" early on, viewing artificial intelligence as the core driving force of its cloud computing business. Alibaba Cloud, as a leading cloud computing service provider in the Asia-Pacific region, provides strong computing power for AI research, training, and inference On February 24th, after releasing an unexpectedly strong financial report showing triple-digit year-on-year growth in AI-related revenue for six consecutive quarters, Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu announced that the company will invest 380 billion yuan over the next three years to upgrade its cloud computing and AI infrastructure, which is more than double the total investment in this area over the past decade.

The explosive growth of AI technology has significantly amplified the importance of cloud computing. As the fourth largest cloud service provider globally and the largest in Asia, Alibaba not only provides powerful computing support but also continues to achieve breakthroughs in its self-developed foundational model Qwen. At the same time, Alibaba is focusing more on the deep integration with B-end enterprises, building a more scenario-based and ecological AI application landscape.

Alibaba's business model has formed a closed loop from technology to customers, from scenarios to models. By collaborating with leading enterprises, Alibaba can not only apply AI technology but also further optimize model capabilities through these scenarios, creating a virtuous cycle.

Thirdly, Alibaba's AI strategy is expanding from the digital world to the physical world. As Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, stated: the ultimate goal of AI is physical AI, achieving a leap from software to hardware, from virtual to reality.

Today, Alibaba's partners include leading entities in the real industry, such as automobile manufacturers and telecommunications operators. These collaborations are precisely the best scenarios for the integration of AI and the physical world. The complex problems in real scenarios continuously drive model evolution, making it closer to business needs and forming a feedback mechanism of "customer needs feeding back into AI models."

The evolution of AI models cannot be achieved by shutting the door and training in isolation. The true progress of AI must grow through the collision with the complex scenarios of the real world.

The recently released Manus intelligent agent embodies this idea. It can understand complex instructions and autonomously plan and execute tasks, representing the evolution of AI from single functionality to comprehensive capability. Through deep collaboration with industry partners, Alibaba is accelerating this evolutionary process.

The Next Stage of AI Development: The Vision of AGI

With increased capital expenditure and accelerated iteration of large models achieving a leading position, market focus is shifting. For example, Goldman Sachs recently pointed out in a report that the market will gradually turn its attention to the progress of AI Agents and AI applications.

For Alibaba, the future development direction is clear. Looking back at Eddie Wu's statements during the earnings call, he repeatedly emphasized one keyword: AGI (Artificial General Intelligence).

In Eddie Wu's view, this is not an unattainable concept but a clear goal of Alibaba's AI strategy: "Our primary goal in the AI strategy is to pursue AGI; this is our first goal, and we must continuously strive to break through the boundaries of model intelligence."

Why does Alibaba prioritize AGI? Eddie Wu's judgment is very clear: AGI refers to artificial intelligence that can complete over 80% of human work, whether physical or mental labor. Currently, half of the global GDP expenditure is spent on labor wages Once AI truly develops to the AGI stage, it means that about half of global economic activities could be completely transformed or even replaced by AI. This implies that if AI can indeed reach such a level, artificial intelligence will become the largest industry in the world, far surpassing any business model that humans can currently imagine.

Eddie Wu's viewpoint actually points out the fundamental logic behind Alibaba's insistence on deep cooperation with leading industry clients:

First, the realization of AGI cannot be achieved solely through algorithms or simple technological upgrades; it requires AI to have a profound understanding of and broad adaptability to the complex scenarios of the real world. Where does this capability come from? Only when AI is in real industrial environments, facing genuine complex problems, and continuously receiving refinement and feedback, can it truly possess stronger generalization abilities.

For this reason, Alibaba actively chooses to deeply cooperate with automotive giants, telecommunications operators, and leading manufacturers. These top clients are situated in industries that represent core components of the economic structure, possessing the most genuine, complex, and diverse actual demands and application scenarios. By delving into these industries, Alibaba's AI models can continuously undergo "real-world" testing, growing and evolving in complex production environments—this is precisely the necessary path to achieving AGI.

Secondly, to truly "complete over 80% of human capabilities," it means that Alibaba's AI cannot only showcase its abilities in simple scenarios like e-commerce, chatting, or searching. Only by deeply engaging in complex fields such as industrial manufacturing and transportation, and collaborating with leading clients, can Alibaba find one "training ground" after another in the real world, gradually approaching the "omnipotent" goal defined by AGI standards.

Eddie Wu also pointed out that in the future, 90% of AI intelligent output (i.e., tokens generated by models) will occur on cloud computing networks, as only cloud computing can efficiently support such vast computing power and data volume. This further reinforces Alibaba's logic: AI must be deeply integrated into cloud computing infrastructure, and through AI infrastructure, this capability can be rapidly delivered to application developers worldwide.

Finally, Eddie Wu clearly stated that Alibaba Group's strategic goal also lies in openness and ecology. Through co-creation with leading clients, Alibaba not only helps clients enhance efficiency and value but also gains valuable feedback from clients, continuously improving its AI model's intelligent capabilities. This open cooperative ecosystem not only helps Alibaba achieve its long-term strategic goal of AGI but also allows downstream clients to enjoy the dividends of the AGI era in advance.

The ultimate battlefield for AI is not in the ivory tower, but in the vibrant real world. Alibaba chooses to be the pioneer that embraces the vibrancy, using 380 billion and countless industry collaborations to facilitate the evolution and implementation of AI models. When AI truly enters various industries and creates visible benefits, Alibaba's investment will have already yielded substantial returns