The expansion will grow its existing network of 91 facilities across 29 regions and places the Chinese company head-to-head with established giants like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

Earlier this year, Alibaba pledged ¥380 billion ($53.4 billion) over three years to build AI infrastructure. At its annual Apsara Conference, Chief Executive Eddie Wu signalled the spending will not stop there. “The speed of AI industry development has far exceeded our expectations, and the industry’s demand for AI infrastructure has also far exceeded our expectations,” he told participants.

The highlight of the event was the unveiling of Qwen3-Max, Alibaba’s largest artificial intelligence model so far. Built with more than 1 trillion parameters, it has been designed to handle code generation and operate as an autonomous agent, systems that can pursue goals with limited human direction.

According to Alibaba Cloud’s Chief Technology Officer, Zhou Jingren, the model displayed particular strength in tasks that typically require continuous prompts. Independent benchmarks such as Tau2-Bench showed it surpassed rival offerings including Anthropic’s Claude and DeepSeek-V3.1 in some areas.

Alibaba also presented Qwen3-Omni, a multimodal system developed for immersive applications ranging from smart glasses to intelligent cockpits. This is a drive into consumer-facing AI experiences, particularly in retail, automotive, and wearable technology.

In a further step, the company revealed a partnership with Nvidia to advance physical AI capabilities. Their collaboration will focus on model training, data synthesis, reinforcement learning, and validation for real-world use cases, areas where Nvidia dominates the global chip market.

Alibaba, once known primarily for e-commerce, is now placing AI and cloud services at the centre of its global operations, strengthening a competition that stretches across Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

Filed on 17 July 2025, the complaints target the companies for failing to meet obligations under Article 15 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which entitles individuals to obtain a complete copy of their personal data. 

According to noyb, these Chinese-owned platforms are deliberately making it difficult for users to access their data in full, a legal requirement across the European Union.

While many technology firms provide users with structured tools to download their data, noyb said TikTok, AliExpress, and WeChat either delivered incomplete data, delayed their responses, or provided files so disorganised that users could not understand them.

“TikTok, AliExpress and WeChat love collecting as much data about you as possible – but vehemently refuse to give you full access as required by EU law,” stated Kleanthi Sardeli, data protection lawyer at noyb.

In its complaint, noyb outlined the extent of each company’s alleged non-compliance:

• TikTok reportedly provided users with raw, unstructured data that lacked explanations on processing purposes, recipients, or cross-border transfers.
• AliExpress sent a corrupted data file that could only be accessed once and failed to engage meaningfully with further requests.
• WeChat responded after six months, offering generic instructions but none of the mandatory information concerning data transfers or safeguards.

This isn’t the first time noyb, short for “None of Your Business”, has challenged Chinese tech companies over data privacy violations. In January 2025, it filed complaints against six Chinese firms, including Shein, Temu, Xiaomi, AliExpress, TikTok, and WeChat, pointing to unlawful data transfers to China. 

The advocacy group argued that China’s status as an “authoritarian surveillance state” makes it impossible for companies to guarantee that European user data won’t end up in government hands.

At the time, noyb demanded suspension of all data transfers to China and penalties of up to 4% of global revenue. If enforced, AliExpress could face a fine of €147 million, while Temu risks €1.35 billion.

EU regulators have issued more than 6,680 fines worth €4.2 billion since GDPR enforcement began in 2018. However, enforcement against non-European platforms has been inconsistent. 

Noyb’s latest filings seek to pressure regulators into closing that gap, particularly as Chinese platforms continue their aggressive expansion into European markets.

Noyb has previously gone after U.S. tech giants like Apple, Alphabet, and Meta, contributing to regulatory investigations and billion-euro penalties.

The current cases are escalations against Chinese companies accused of privacy violations and undermining European digital sovereignty.