In "The Big Banks," China International Capital Corporation cites market experts predicting Alibaba's cloud revenue growth will exceed 33% this year

Bank of China International released a report indicating that on February 3rd, an expert meeting on China's cloud computing industry was held, discussing topics including the outlook for the domestic cloud market size and growth rate in 2026, the competitive landscape of domestic cloud vendors globally, progress in AI integration, and Alibaba's (09988.HK) cloud business and capital expenditure outlook for the calendar year 2026.

Experts estimate that the domestic cloud computing industry market size will grow by 20-30% annually to RMB 450-500 billion by 2026, with AI cloud contributing the largest incremental growth (the AI cloud market size is expected to double annually to RMB 100 billion by 2026). Experts believe that Alibaba, due to its full-stack AI capabilities and existing customer coverage advantages, will be able to capture 80% of the AI cloud market increment it publicly claims by 2026.

Experts estimate that Alibaba's cloud revenue for the calendar year 2026 will grow by more than 33% year-on-year, reaching around RMB 200 billion, with revenue growth from external cloud and overseas cloud expected to exceed that of internal cloud and domestic cloud. The medium to long-term profit margin level of the cloud business will improve due to the rising proportion of high-priced AI cloud services (especially AIPaaS) revenue and increased fragmented sales.

Regarding capital expenditure, experts estimate that Alibaba will invest RMB 160-180 billion in the calendar year 2026, with 70% of the budget allocated for the procurement of AI servers, including the purchase of AI chips