$Alibaba(BABA.US) took a look at Alibaba's significant investments in the AI sector, some of which involve exchanging computing power for equity. It feels a bit like "killing two birds with one stone"—gaining returns from equity investments while directly boosting Alibaba Cloud's revenue.

Moonshot AI (Kimi): Clear computing power payment terms

Alibaba's investment in Moonshot AI is the clearest case of a binding agreement. In February 2024, Alibaba led a funding round of over $1 billion in Moonshot AI, contributing approximately $800 million to acquire about 36% equity. According to reports from *Caijing* magazine and *The Paper*, the investment agreement explicitly stipulated that part of the investment would be paid in the form of computing power—around $300 million must be used to purchase Alibaba Cloud's computing services, with other sources indicating nearly half (about $400 million) was provided as cloud credits. This means Moonshot AI must use these funds to train and run its models on Alibaba Cloud. Moonshot AI founder Yang Zhilin has publicly endorsed Alibaba Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud has repeatedly mentioned Moonshot AI's use of its computing power and database services.

MiniMax$MINIMAX-WP(00100.HK): Continuous growth in cloud procurement and a two-way binding relationship. The binding relationship between MiniMax and Alibaba is most thoroughly disclosed in the prospectus. Alibaba indirectly holds a 13.66% stake through investment, making it the largest external shareholder. The prospectus shows that MiniMax has been continuously purchasing cloud computing services from Alibaba Cloud since 2022, with procurement amounts soaring from $40,000 in 2022 to $58.4 million in the first three quarters of 2025. The two parties also signed a long-term binding agreement: MiniMax's annual procurement from Alibaba Cloud for the next three years (2026-2028) is expected to be around $100 million each year.

Other investments include Zhipu AI and 01.AI, but no specific details were found regarding their use of Alibaba Cloud, though it's highly likely they also use it.