Alibaba (BABA) recently gave investors a fresh reason to rethink how they view the company. For more than a year, the Chinese tech giant has poured billions into artificial intelligence (AI), betting that owning the full technology stack — from chips to the cloud and apps — would pay off eventually.
That bet is now showing notable results. Two separate developments this summer point to the same conclusion: Alibaba's AI ambitions are moving from a spending story to a revenue and credibility story.