China tech giants ByteDance and Alibaba to ramp up AI infrastructure efforts

ByteDance and Alibaba Group Holding are poised to ratchet up their artificial intelligence infrastructure initiatives, as the global AI arms race continues to intensify. The two companies’ latest moves lend weight to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s recent remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the world was witnessing the biggest infrastructure buildout in history and that trillions of dollars of infrastructure still had to be built. Beijing-based ByteDance, operator of TikTok and Douyin, did not only want more data centres, but also required these facilities to be used in a cheaper way, according to CEO Liang Rubo. “Given the massive investments, efficiency is paramount. Otherwise, it amounts to significant waste,” Liang told employees on Thursday. “We must continuously pursue cheaper computing solutions,” he said. “This involves optimising efficiency across all levels: data centres, power consumption, GPU/CPU [graphics processing unit/ central processing unit] utilisation, system architecture, algorithms and product engineering.” ByteDance planned to spend about 100 billion yuan (US$14 billion) on AI chips from Nvidia in 2026, a hefty increase from roughly 85 billion yuan in 2025, the South China Morning Post reported last month, citing people familiar with the matter. Alibaba, meanwhile, was considering to increase capital spending on AI infrastructure to 480 billion yuan, up from its original outlay of 380 billion yuan over the next three years, according to a report on Friday by Chinese media LatePost. Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu Yongming in September pledged to boost the company’s AI infrastructure expenditure, but did not provide the amount of investment. Hangzhou-based Alibaba owns the SCMP. The e-commerce giant has been investing heavily in data centres and AI systems through its Alibaba Cloud unit, as well as in semiconductors via chip design arm T-Head. More than 100,000 units of T-Head’s Zhenwu 810E parallel processing unit, launched on Thursday, have been delivered to various clients, according to people familiar with the matter. Chinese carmakers, including BYD and Xpeng, each ordered more than 10,000 units of the AI chip in 2025, LatePost reported. Neither Alibaba, BYD nor Xpeng replied to a request for comment on Friday. Tencent Holdings also pledged to step up the company’s long-term investment in AI infrastructure and talent, founder, chairman and CEO Pony Ma Huateng told employees on Monday. In the first three quarters of 2025, Shenzhen-based Tencent’s capital spending grew 48 per cent to nearly 60 billion yuan from a year earlier. Chief financial officer John Lo said the firm increased infrastructure investment “to support [its] AI initiatives”. ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent were expected to receive the first batch of more than 400,000 H200 graphics processing units from Nvidia approved for import to China, according to a Reuters report. Huang, however, said on Thursday that the licence for the H200 import was still “being finalised” by Chinese authorities.