Alibaba's Wholesale Marketplace Arm Sets Ambitious Goal For Full AI Adoption By Merchants In 2025

Alibaba.com. global wholesale marketplace of Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE:BABA), has set its sights on achieving total adoption of its artificial intelligence (AI) tools by all its sellers by the end of 2025.

What Happened: Zhang Kuo, the company’s president, is confident of achieving a 100% adoption rate by the end of the year. “In the end, when they feel that these parts are easier to manage and [the AI agents] provide better performance … those parts should be taken care of by AI,” Zhang told the South China Morning Post on Tuesday.

Over half of the approximately 200,000 merchants on Alibaba are already making use of its AI tools every week. Launched in 2024, these AI tools support sellers in marketing, product management, customer engagement, and risk control, playing a crucial role in the company’s strategy to grow its cross-border e-commerce operations.

Alibaba’s focus on AI and cloud computing has intensified, following a pledge to invest a minimum of 380 billion yuan ($52 billion) over the next three years to improve its infrastructure related to these technologies. This investment represents the largest-ever computing project funded by a sole private enterprise in China.

SEE ALSO: Move Over DeepSeek? Not So Fast: China’s Manus AI Goes Viral, But Early Users Say It Crashes, Loops, And Fumbles The Basics

Why It Matters: This ambitious goal comes on the heels of Alibaba’s unveiling of a new AI reasoning model QwQ-32B as a rival to DeepSeek R-1.

Furthermore, analysts also believe that Alibaba’s new XuanTie C930 chip will inject fresh momentum into China's semiconductor industry, potentially broadening domestic use of open-source chips built on the RISC-V instruction set architecture. This move is seen as a counter to U.S. semiconductor sanctions and could significantly bolster Alibaba’s AI capabilities, aiding in the realization of its 100% AI adoption goal.

Guotai Junan Securities analysts told the SCMP previously that RISC-V holds great promise in the AI era, much like DeepSeek, which has challenged OpenAI's dominance with its open-source, cost-effective, and high-performance capabilities.

Interestingly, Alibaba.com President Zhang downplayed concerns about an escalating US-China trade war after US President Donald Trump recently announced an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports.

• READ MORE: Is Beijing Worried About Losing Trade War With US? Xi Jinping Reportedly Fears ‘China Could Become Isolated Like Moscow,’ Say Close Aides

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.