Alibaba Group: 2026 Apsara key messages

UBS First Read on Alibaba Group. Management noted several industry trends that support its positive demand outlook, including: 1) modality expansion from text to image, video, audio/music, and 3D World models, with additional modalities broadening addressable use cases and increasing compute requirements; 2) inference demand exceeding training demand, as inference expands the user base from model developers to end users, resulting in a larger TAM; 3) AI serving as a multiplier for the traditional cloud portfolio, with increasing AI spending now driving cross-selling of other traditional cloud revenue, such as storage, networking, and security; 4) demand broadening across end markets well beyond the internet sector, including manufacturing, financial services, autonomous driving, robotics, and traditional industries such as agriculture;