Stymied by Beijing's sweeping 2022 crackdown on large internet and tech companies, Alibaba last year overhauled the division's leadership and has been shaping it as a future growth driver, stepping up competition with rivals including Baidu and Huawei domestically, and Microsoft and OpenAI in the U.S.
Alibaba, which rolled out its own ChatGPT-style product Tongyi Qianwen last year, this week unveiled its own AI-powered search tool for small businesses in Europe and the Americas, and clinched a key five-year partnership to supply cloud services to Indonesian tech giant GoTo in September.