Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai: DeepSeek’s rise jolted us into action

['Technode Feed', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Vertical-Align Middle .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar Is .Alignleft .Alignright'] TechNode 2025-06-13 00:00:00

Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai has revealed that the company’s engineers worked through the Chinese New Year holiday to accelerate AI development after the company felt pressured by DeepSeek’s breakthrough. Speaking at the VivaTech conference in Paris, Tsai said DeepSeek’s low-cost, high-performance AI model which launched in January shocked the industry and exposed Alibaba’s lag in the field. Tsai emphasized that making Qwen open source is aimed at popularizing AI use and boosting demand for cloud services. Alibaba plans to invest over $53 billion in AI infrastructure over three years and has partnered with Apple to provide AI technology for iPhones. Despite these efforts, Tsai acknowledged ongoing challenges, with Alibaba’s revenue growing just 7% in Q1 2024.