Alibaba Cloud increased its market share to 36% thanks to AI

Alibaba Cloud is strengthening its position as a leader in the Chinese cloud market, reaching a 36 percent share in the third quarter of 2025. This jump from 34 percent in the previous period is not just a number, but a signal of a fundamental shift in how the cloud industry is developing. According to analytics agency Omdia, Alibaba Cloud demonstrates growth for the third consecutive quarter, consolidating its status as an undisputed dominant player. But what matters most in this story is not the percentages themselves — it's what drives them: artificial intelligence has transformed from a promising direction into the primary driver of demand for cloud computing.

The context of this strengthening is important for understanding underlying processes. The Chinese cloud services market is undergoing a transformation where AI becomes not an additional feature, but a fundamental infrastructure requirement. Companies and government organizations are transitioning from traditional cloud service usage — data storage, virtual machines, databases — to deploying and training their own language models, working with computer vision and predictive analytics. This transition created an entirely new category of demand, and Alibaba Cloud was ready to meet it faster than competitors.

Data from Alibaba's quarterly reports reveal the scale of this phenomenon. The company's AI services revenues demonstrate three-digit growth for nine consecutive quarters — a figure that, in the context of such a large corporation, shows not just success, but exponential expansion of the segment. This is about demand that outpaces the company itself: each quarter demand grows many times over. This means that Alibaba Cloud is not simply participating in the AI trend, but actively creating it, offering clients tools that other cloud service providers develop less dynamically.

It's important to understand that this shift reflects a broader truth about the development of the digital economy. AI is no longer a component that can be added to existing cloud infrastructure. It is becoming its center. Organizations that want to remain competitive must have access to computing power optimized specifically for machine learning — with the right accelerators, specialized networking solutions, and pre-configured frameworks. Alibaba Cloud has built its service portfolio with an understanding of this logic.

For the cloud services industry in China, this means a reassessment of competitive positions. Companies that have been slow in developing their AI direction are now forced to accelerate. Alibaba Cloud's growth from 34 to 36 percent may seem marginal, but in reality it reflects the flow of capital investment and customer choice. When a large company begins implementing AI solutions, it chooses the cloud provider that offers the most advanced tools in this direction.

The outlook is also clear. As AI becomes integrated into more business processes, demand for specialized cloud services will only intensify. Alibaba Cloud, demonstrating three-digit growth in the AI segment quarter after quarter, positions itself as an infrastructure guarantor of digital transformation. This is not just commercial success — it is proof that in the new era of cloud computing, it is not the first to market that wins, but the one who correctly read the direction of industry development and invested in the right technologies at the right time.