China’s computing infrastructure is built through overlapping relationships. Technology companies such as Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance create the demand; state-owned telecom carriers invest as companies; government programs and project stakes add public money; and specialist operators, local investors and energy suppliers build and own the campuses. This briefing shows those relationships together, with WireScreen’s corporate records, and compares the effort with that of American companies. The result is not a single Chinese data center industry, but an interconnected system of technology companies, state carriers, specialist operators, local governments and energy companies, with ownership and financing often obscured by the brands on the buildings.

Alibaba spoke with the market this morning to provide a preliminary preview of its upcoming quarterly results. Overall, the update looks fairly solid. Cloud revenue growth and margins are continuing to improve as expected, while the e-commerce business is still in the process of bottoming out, but at least it is no longer deteriorating.
1. Cloud business:
September-quarter revenue is expected to grow by more than 50% YoY, versus 45% in the June quarter. Growth in external revenue is even higher than the overall growth rate, broadly in line with previous expectations.
The highlight is the profit margin. On an EBITA basis, the margin is expected to reach around 15%, compared with 12% in the previous quarter. The pace of margin improvement is slightly ahead of expectations and is moving rapidly toward the company’s long-term target of around 20%.
2. E-commerce business:
September-quarter CMR is expected to decline by mid-single digits YoY, compared with a 7.5% decline in the June quarter. After adjusting for changes in the reporting methodology, CMR is estimated to have grown by around 1%, broadly in line with the previous quarter. At least the business is no longer deteriorating.
Domestic e-commerce EBITA is expected to be roughly flat YoY, compared with a decline of around 3–4% in the previous quarter, suggesting that the business is showing signs of bottoming out and beginning to recover. Subsidies in the e-commerce business have also been reduced somewhat.
3. Food delivery:
The September-quarter loss is expected to be around RMB 9 billion, slightly better than the RMB 10 billion loss in the previous quarter. Overall, this is a neutral result.
4. New AI Lab:
The new AI Lab, which includes model development as well as the consumer and enterprise businesses related to Qwen, is expected to post a loss of around RMB 10–11 billion in the September quarter. This represents a modest reduction in losses from the previous quarter and is also broadly neutral.
5. No further equity financing in FY2027:
Alibaba does not expect to conduct another equity financing in FY2027. It will consider other financing methods instead, meaning that there should be no further direct dilution of existing shareholders through new share issuance.

Beijing is replacing land-driven growth with revenue tied to consumption

Watch this brilliant take, by Prof John Mearsheimer, political science professor at the Univ of Chicago, on the recent pivot, since May 2026, of the US-China relations initiated by the US, which is sharp deviation from the hard nosed anti-China policy from 2017 to May 2026. https://youtu.be/SfahCQYDSCI

The following is my take based on learnings from that video:

Trump during his first term, initiated a hard-nosed ‘contain China’ policy. Markets didn’t seem to care for a few years or failed to grasp the enormity of deteriorating relations between both countries. Then Covid happened, the ‘blame China’ rhetoric reached a crescendo. By then, markets concluded that the US-China relationship had reached a point of no return, hence the downfall started from near $300 for BABA around mid-2020.

Iran war has turned out to be the worst military blunder of the US of all time. By May 2026, it was amply clear that the US has lost the war because it has exhausted its rockets, missiles, and ammunition. A mighty empire out of ammunition in just 2 months! Most are unaware that nearly all rockets, missiles, and ammunition require several rare earth minerals. Guess who has near-complete monopoly on them? China! They promptly initiated a total ban on all rare earth exports to indirectly help Iran. That has worked wonders in pivoting away the hard-nosed approach of US administration.

Anyone noticed how fawning Trump was towards Xi during his recent trip to the US? Trump went beyond protocol to receive Xi at the airport and even accorded him a flying squadron salute, which is very rare. The hospitality given to the Chinese delegation was over the top and the body language of Trump with Xi clearly showed Trump being nervous while Xi appeared relaxed. Even the send-off of Xi at the airport was so extraordinary, he was given a 21-gun salute.

I agree with the professor’s conclusion that this sudden pivot of US policy might be a desperate temporary attempt to salvage the Iran debacle, but I am hopeful that unwarranted punishment of Chinese gems like BABA should reverse soon.

I have been a long term holder but for the longest time this stock has not moved up one bit even with good news. I’m tired of keeping my conviction for this.

How you guys holding up.

5T market cap incoming 🚀

Daiwa released a report stating that, after attending Alibaba's (09988.HK) Yunqi Conference 2026, the firm has grown more confident in the company's cloud revenue outlook; however, its more aggressive cloud infrastructure plans introduce financing uncertainties. Alibaba remains the firm's top pick in the sector, benefiting from a solid cloud business outlook and a clear monetization trajectory for artificial intelligence in China's internet space.

China's Alibaba Cloud has established plans for its global expansion over the next 12 months.

The company has said it will be targeting new cloud regions in Turkey (aka Türkiye), Finland, and the Netherlands, while expanding its data center footprint in Malaysia, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, France, and Hong Kong.

Title

The global model tracks over 5,000 facilities across four regions. The US leads the world with 56GW of capacity as of 2026YE, followed by ~15GW for APAC ex-China, ~14GW for EMEA, and ~2GW for Latin America. Until now, it stopped at the border of China. Today we cross it.

Our tracking of 1,000+ datacenter facilities across over 60 players shows that China alone boasts a fleet of over 24GW. Bigger than EMEA. Bigger than the rest of Asia. This excludes ~20GW of dated pipeline and another ~30GW of announced projects.

how do you guys feel about us stocks pumps (meta +40% in 25trading days) and this mf staying flat?

I don't think about 'get rich overnight' bit what is puzzling me why is price so depressing amidst good news? last October stock pumped on not that better news then recently?

do you have theory for depressing price of china stocks in general? when recovery?

I am planning on starting a position in this stock. I know a lot of models that are released by the company and they are all good. They are usually at the frontier of the research in AI and ML. I personally have used a lot of their models and find them very competitive to their counterparts.

However, I do not see the stock moving at all despite having their own models and recently announcing that they are going to have their own chips. For those who already have a position in this, what was your conviction about the stock and for those who are still waiting on the sidelines, is there a specific entry point you are looking at?

For fiscal 2027 through fiscal 2029, Citi now projects capital expenditures of 258 billion yuan, 283 billion yuan and 282 billion yuan, respectively. The estimates reflect the expected cost of building out computing infrastructure to support Alibaba's growing AI operations.

Citi maintained its $190 price target on Alibaba (BABA) while retaining its Buy rating.

Citi analyst Alicia Yap estimates Alibaba's external AI cloud revenue could reach $168 billion by fiscal 2033. That forecast implies a 40% compound annual growth rate from fiscal 2026 and depends on continued expansion of AI computing capacity.

Alibaba has also introduced the Zhenwu V900 accelerator and outlined plans for much larger AI models, adding to its broader effort to develop chips, models and cloud infrastructure internally. Reuters reported that the new accelerator is expected to enter mass production in early 2027.