Alibaba's CEO says he doesn't see 'much of an issue' with an AI bubble and plans to invest 'aggressively' (www.businessinsider.com)

Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu dismissed talk of an AI bubble on the company’s Q2 earnings call, saying demand is real and outpacing global chip and server supply. He urged aggressive investment in AI infrastructure: Alibaba posted 247.8 billion yuan ($34.8B) revenue for the quarter (up 5% YoY) while net income fell 53% to 20.6 billion yuan after heavy AI and commerce spending. The cloud division—home to the newly launched Qwen model—grew 34% to 39.8 billion yuan, and Qwen surpassed 10 million downloads in its first week. Wu reiterated a previously announced 380 billion yuan three‑year infrastructure plan and suggested that figure may be too small. The comments matter because they signal Alibaba’s bet that supply-side constraints (chips, servers, datacenter capacity) are the limiting factor, not demand, and justify continued capital-heavy expansion despite near-term margin pressure. That view contrasts with more cautious executives who warn of exuberance, but aligns with others (e.g., Nvidia) seeing sustained enterprise adoption. For AI/ML practitioners and cloud customers, the implication is faster rollout of large‑model hosting, more public-cloud AI services, and intensified global capex (Big Tech is on pace for roughly $320B this year)—alongside continued cost and competition dynamics that will shape pricing, latency, and infrastructure availability.