On March 26, CHINA MOBILE and Alibaba held a strategic cooperation agreement signing ceremony in Peking. According to the agreement, both parties will carry out in-depth cooperation in the areas of digital infrastructure, application ecology, scientific innovation capabilities, and international business, jointly constructing and operating advanced AI Datacenters, helping both sides enhance the scale and efficiency of Cloud Computing and AI services, deepening the technical exchange and ecological co-construction of CHINA MOBILE's "Nine Heavens" and Alibaba's "Tongyi Qianwen" AI models, promoting the deep integration of AI with various Industries, and creating greater industrial value. Both sides will co-build a new AI industry ecosystem based on new forces such as cloud, computing power, and large models.

Reporters noted that as early as 2016, CHINA MOBILE and Alibaba signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement. Both parties clearly stated their active implementation of the strategy for a strong networked country and the "Internet +" action plan, following the trend of industrial development, and conducting in-depth cooperation in four major areas: emerging fields, basic Communications Services, information infrastructure, and marketing cooperation.

Based on the layout and advantages in AI, Alibaba has recently continued to expand its "circle of friends." Today, the BMW Group also announced a deepening of its strategic cooperation with Alibaba. Both parties will develop an AI engine based on Alibaba's Tongyi AI large model and apply it to BMW's new generation of models in the Chinese market.

It is reported that the new BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant uses an AI engine jointly developed by BMW and Alibaba, which is planned to be equipped on the new generation of BMW models produced in China, with deliveries expected in 2026 in the Chinese market. The intelligent cockpit and smart travel interaction scenarios supported by the AI engine will debut at the Shanghai Auto Show this April.

Under the support of the Tongyi large model and Zebra Meta AI aimed at the next generation of intelligent cockpits, the new BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant integrates AI Agent for the first time, focusing on natural communication, combined with scene perception, service organization, and cognitive evolution to achieve precise intention capture, complex instruction parsing, vague semantic understanding, and rigorous logical deduction, upgrading the new experience of Human-Vehicle Interaction.

Alibaba Group CEO Wu Yongming stated: "Alibaba Group's deepened strategic cooperation with BMW Group, based on the Alibaba Tongyi large model, helps BMW create a smarter AI experience, representing an innovative exploration to promote the integration of AI with advanced manufacturing. The imagination of AI lies in transforming the physical world, turning AI capabilities into productivity across various industries. We look forward to deepening AI applications in vertical fields through cooperation with BMW, jointly bringing innovation and enhancement of user value."

In recent years, Alibaba has gradually established an "AI-driven" strategy and has clarified through a series of measures that AI is the new growth engine for the future.

In September 2023, Alibaba CEO Wu Yongming明确 stated that "User First, AI Driven" is the two main strategic focuses of the group. Based on this, strategic investments will be increased in three categories of businesses: technology-driven Internet platform business and AI-driven Technology business, as well as a Global Business network.

In November of the same year, Alibaba further clarified the strategic direction of Alibaba Cloud as "Public Cloud First, AI First." An internal letter mentioned that with the arrival of the AI era represented by large models, the demand for Cloud Computing will also show exponential growth behind the AI transformation and innovation needs of various industries. Alibaba Cloud will firmly implement "AI Driven, Public Cloud First," and increase technology investments in AI-related Hardware and Software fields.

On February 24, 2025, Alibaba announced an investment of 380 billion yuan over the next three years to build Cloud and AI Hardware infrastructure, further supporting certain growth space.

Editor/Jeffy