Alibaba and Baidu lift cloud prices by up to 34% amid AI demand surge
The Chinese firms’ price increases are ‘a reasonable response to evolving market conditions’, says IDC China analyst Cui Tingting
The cloud-computing units of Alibaba Group Holding and Baidu are raising prices for certain services by as much as 34 per cent, following similar moves by their American peers earlier this year as artificial intelligence demand and infrastructure costs rise.
Starting April 18, Alibaba Cloud’s services running on its AI chips – such as the T-Head Zhengwu 810E unveiled in late January – would cost between 5 and 34 per cent more, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
The price of its Cloud Parallel File Storage service will rise by 30 per cent. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Meanwhile, Baidu Cloud said on Wednesday that it would increase the price of its AI computing power related services by around 5 to 30 per cent, and its parallel file storage system by 30 per cent. The changes will also take effect on April 18.
Cui Tingting, a research manager at IDC China, described the price increases as “a reasonable response to evolving market conditions”.
She said that demand for computing power had surged amid an intensifying global AI race, while many major AI infrastructure players had announced plans to increase strategic investment in the field over the next three to five years.