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Ann Cao

Chinese artificial intelligence firm MiniMax has raised the three-year purchase ceiling on its cloud computing deals with Alibaba Group Holding by 220 per cent to US$1.2 billion, underscoring surging demand for computing power among the country’s top AI developers.
The Shanghai-based company planned to spend up to US$300 million on Alibaba Cloud services this year, nearly triple its original US$115 million cap, after burning through two-thirds of its budget by the end of June, according to its Hong Kong stock exchange filings on Wednesday.
Under the updated agreement through 2028, MiniMax’s annual spending limits on Alibaba Cloud services will jump from US$125 million to US$400 million for 2027, and from US$135 million to US$500 million for 2028.
In a separate revision, MiniMax expanded its application programming interface (API) service budget with Alibaba, raising the 2026 cap from US$650,000 to US$7.5 million, an over tenfold increase. This brings its three-year API spending ceiling to US$62.5 million, a nearly 20-fold jump from previous limits.
The aggressive revisions reflect MiniMax’s expanding compute needs for both model training and live inference.


Known for its M-series large language models, the H3 video-generation model and popular consumer app Hailuo AI, MiniMax this week reported a 283 per cent surge in first-half revenue to US$116.6 million, driven by a 700 per cent leap in enterprise sales.
Founder and CEO Yan Junjie said on Wednesday the firm’s coming models – including M3.1, M3 Pro and H3.1 – were “nearly completed”.
To support its expansion, MiniMax raised HK$16 billion in July via a share placement and convertible bond issuance, earmarking about 80 per cent of net proceeds for AI infrastructure and model development through 2027.
The revised deals highlight an industry-wide shift in China’s generative AI landscape from foundational model training to scaling compute-heavy inference workloads driven by agentic AI.
China’s model-as-a-service market was projected to handle 40,000 trillion token calls by 2026, according to projections by research firm IDC.
Alibaba reported a 45 per cent revenue increase in its cloud and AI businesses for the quarter ended June, its fastest growth in 22 quarters. The firm also began commercial-scale deployment of its Zhenwu M890 AI processor earlier this month.
MiniMax said in its filing that Alibaba cloud service procurement accounted for about 30 per cent of its total research and development expense of US$253 million last year, a ratio it expected to maintain as it scaled infrastructure to support future operations.
The company’s procurement of Alibaba products, it added, could ensure “secure, stable and efficient underlying infrastructure and cloud service support with high scalability and flexibility”, supporting the smooth running of its core business and the development of foundation models.
Beyond its deep Alibaba cooperation, MiniMax has also been establishing its own computing infrastructure.
During the earnings call this week, Yan said MiniMax was building an “independent and controllable” computing cluster – complete with high-bandwidth networks, dedicated lines, servers and storage – to serve as a core technology going forward.
The company had started using domestically made AI chips, which would account for a larger share of its computing power from the fourth quarter of this year, he said.
Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.


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Chinese AI firm burns through two-thirds of its cloud budget by June, forcing a dramatic increase in its Alibaba deal ceiling


Chinese AI firm burns through two-thirds of its cloud budget by June, forcing a dramatic increase in its Alibaba deal ceiling.


MiniMax expands Alibaba cloud pact as compute needs surge for training and inference

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Chinese AI firm burns through two-thirds of its cloud budget by June, forcing a dramatic increase in its Alibaba deal ceiling

Chinese AI firm burns through two-thirds of its cloud budget by June, forcing a dramatic increase in its Alibaba deal ceiling