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What’s New Today: Alibaba is scaling up its AI infrastructure with a massive chip-powered data centre, AfterQuery has raised fresh funding as the race for quality AI data intensifies, China faces rising youth unemployment, AWS has crossed a major AI revenue milestone, and Ant Group is blending blockchain with AI-driven transactions.
Fast-Track Insights:
China is accelerating its push for self-reliant AI infrastructure.
Specialised training data is becoming a critical AI battleground.
Youth unemployment is emerging as a structural concern in China.
Cloud giants are seeing strong revenue growth from AI services.
AI and blockchain are beginning to converge in new ways.
Your Lightning Rundown: Alibaba’s infrastructure push highlights China’s long-term AI ambitions, while AfterQuery’s funding reflects the growing value of data behind AI systems. Rising youth unemployment adds economic pressure in China. AWS’s numbers show AI demand surging, and Ant’s platform signals how AI could reshape digital transactions.
Alibaba has opened a new data centre using 10,000 of its own chips, signalling a stronger push for domestic capability. The move follows ongoing US restrictions and highlights China’s focus on reducing dependence on foreign technology while building capacity to run advanced AI models at scale.
AfterQuery has raised $30 million from Altos Ventures, taking its valuation to $300 million. The company works on expert-level training data, now in high demand as AI firms chase better outputs. Investors see this niche as essential, with quality data shaping how models perform in real-world use.
Unemployment among young people continues to be a problem in China due to most graduates not finding work. This means there is more that is happening in the economy than meets the eye. It has been challenging for jobs to be created and there have been shifts in industry demands.
Amazon Web Services has crossed $15 billion in AI revenue, with its chip segment also expanding quickly. The growth reflects rising enterprise spending on AI tools and infrastructure. AWS is increasing investments in custom chips and services as competition with other cloud players becomes more intense.
Ant Group has rolled out a blockchain platform designed for AI agents to carry out transactions. The system allows automated interactions using crypto rails, pointing to new use cases where machines can operate independently in financial systems, with minimal human input and faster execution across digital networks.
