Alibaba Group Chairman Joe Tsai spoke at length on the value and opportunities unleashed by artificial intelligence during J.P. Morgan’s 20th annual Global China Summit in May.
Over 2,700 delegates from 1,300 companies across 33 markets gathered in Shanghai for the conference to explore business insights from tech, healthcare, renewables and more.
During Tsai’s fireside chat, AI dominated discussion.
“AI is too important of an area where you cannot just take one path,” said Tsai, who took the stage opposite Kam Shing Kwang, Chairwoman, North Asia, and Vice Chair of Investment Banking, Greater China, J.P. Morgan.
“We’re the only company [in China] that both runs a leading cloud business and is competitive in AI,” he added. “The combination of AI and cloud is important.”
Over a 30-minute conversation with Kwang, Tsai outlined how AI is driving growth at the company he co-founded 25 years ago, whether in Alibaba’s core e-commerce businesses or its cloud unit.
“We just see so much upside to AI… and that’s why we’re all in.”
Watch the full interview above and discover key quotes edited for clarity below
Key Quotes
“As a lay person [looking] to understand AI, it’s like educating a child: you send them to middle school, high school, college and then eventually they get PhDs… When people compare LLMs and say ‘mine is better than yours,’ they are really saying ‘my child has three PhDs and are well-versed in biology, math and psychology.’”
“Fundamentally as a technology company and as a pioneer in technology, we believe in the continuous advancement of machine intelligence and that machines will get smarter and smarter.”
“It’s important to us that we can apply AI in numerous vertical applications… When we look at our use cases in e-commerce, it’s incredible.”
“Anybody that uses our AI will need to use cloud computing power… When they use open-sourced AI within our community, they also need computing power. That’s how we can grow our cloud computing revenue.”
“AI is too important of an area where you cannot just go one path. It reminds me of a Yogi Berra saying. He said, ‘when you come to a fork in the road, take it.’”
“Alibaba is about growth. We’re about technology innovation. We’re about applying our technology into our core business to create value for our customers and eventually also for our shareholders… You have to have a growth mindset when you compete and that’s where we are.”
