Eddie Wu

Eddie Wu
Born	Wu Yongming
Nationality	Singaporean
Occupation	Business executive
Title	Chief Executive Officer, Alibaba Group
Known for	CEO of Alibaba Group

Eddie Wu (Template:Lang, also known as Wu Yongming) is a Singaporean business executive who serves as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Alibaba Group, one of the world's largest e-commerce and technology companies. Wu assumed the role on 10 September 2023, succeeding Daniel Zhang. A member of Alibaba's original group of 18 co-founders who joined Jack Ma in establishing the company in 1999, Wu has spent more than two decades within the Alibaba ecosystem, holding a range of technical and leadership positions before ascending to the top executive role. Under his leadership, Alibaba has pursued an aggressive strategy centered on artificial intelligence (AI), committing tens of billions of dollars to AI infrastructure and positioning the company at the forefront of China's AI development race. His September 2025 announcement of plans to invest more than 380 billion yuan (approximately US$53 billion) in AI infrastructure triggered a significant rally in Alibaba's stock price, underscoring investor confidence in the company's strategic direction under his stewardship.

Early Life

Eddie Wu was born as Wu Yongming (吴泳铭). He holds Singaporean citizenship. Wu was among the original group of individuals who co-founded Alibaba alongside Jack Ma in 1999 in Hangzhou, China. The founding team, often referred to as the "Alibaba 18," gathered in Ma's apartment to launch what would become one of the most consequential technology companies in the world. Wu's participation in the founding of Alibaba from its earliest days positioned him as one of the longest-serving figures in the company's history, with deep institutional knowledge of its culture, operations, and strategic evolution.

Details about Wu's upbringing and family background prior to the founding of Alibaba remain limited in publicly available sources. What is known is that Wu developed technical skills in software engineering and computer science that would prove instrumental in his career at Alibaba. His technical background distinguished him from some of the other co-founders and allowed him to contribute directly to the development of Alibaba's core technology platforms during the company's formative years.

Education

Eddie Wu attended the Zhejiang University of Technology, a public university located in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China. The institution is recognized for its programs in engineering and technology. Wu's education at Zhejiang University of Technology provided him with a foundation in technical disciplines that would become central to his career trajectory at Alibaba, where he initially served in engineering and technology-focused roles.

Career

Early Career at Alibaba

Wu was one of the 18 co-founders of Alibaba Group, joining Jack Ma and the other founding members in 1999 to establish the company. In the company's early years, Wu served as one of Alibaba's first engineers, playing a direct role in building the technical infrastructure that underpinned the company's initial e-commerce platforms. His technical contributions during this period helped shape the foundational architecture of Alibaba's marketplace systems.

Over the subsequent years, Wu held multiple positions within the Alibaba ecosystem, accumulating experience across various business units and functional areas. His career within the company spanned both technical and managerial roles, giving him a comprehensive understanding of Alibaba's diverse operations, which grew to encompass e-commerce, cloud computing, digital payments, logistics, media, and entertainment.

Wu served in leadership positions within Alibaba's technology and strategic investment functions. He was involved in overseeing aspects of Alibaba's technology strategy and was connected to the company's efforts to expand its digital ecosystem through investments and partnerships. His long tenure within the company and his involvement in multiple business areas made him one of the most experienced executives within the Alibaba organization.

Appointment as CEO of Alibaba Group

On 10 September 2023, Eddie Wu officially became the CEO of Alibaba Group, replacing Daniel Zhang, who had held the position since 2015. The leadership transition occurred during a period of significant organizational restructuring at Alibaba. Earlier in 2023, the company had announced a sweeping reorganization plan that divided Alibaba into six major business groups, each with its own CEO and board of directors. This restructuring was intended to make the conglomerate more agile and responsive to competitive pressures in the Chinese technology sector.

Wu's appointment was part of a broader set of leadership changes that reflected a strategic recalibration at Alibaba. His selection for the CEO role was viewed as a signal that the company intended to return to its technical roots and prioritize technology-driven growth. As one of the original co-founders with deep technical expertise, Wu represented a link to Alibaba's founding vision while also bringing extensive operational experience gained over more than two decades at the company.

The transition also occurred against the backdrop of a challenging period for Chinese technology companies. Alibaba, along with other major Chinese tech firms, had faced increased regulatory scrutiny from Chinese authorities beginning in late 2020, which had resulted in a record antitrust fine and other regulatory actions. Additionally, the company's stock price had declined substantially from its 2020 highs, and competitive pressures from rivals such as PDD Holdings (parent of Pinduoduo and Temu) and ByteDance (parent of Douyin and TikTok) had intensified. Wu assumed the CEO role with a mandate to reinvigorate Alibaba's competitiveness and chart a clear strategic direction for the company.

AI Strategy and Investment

Under Eddie Wu's leadership, Alibaba has made artificial intelligence the central pillar of its corporate strategy. Wu has articulated a vision in which AI represents a transformative force comparable to the emergence of the internet, and he has positioned Alibaba to be a leading participant in the development and deployment of AI technologies, particularly within the Chinese market.

In September 2025, Wu delivered a speech at a technology conference in which he outlined Alibaba's plans to invest more than 380 billion yuan, approximately US$53 billion, in AI infrastructure over the coming years. The announcement represented a substantial escalation of Alibaba's previously stated investment commitments and signaled the company's intent to build large-scale computing infrastructure to support the training and deployment of advanced AI models. Wu indicated that spending on AI infrastructure would exceed even this already substantial figure, framing the investment as necessary to capitalize on what he described as a generational technological shift.

The speech had an immediate and pronounced impact on financial markets. Alibaba's stock surged to its highest level in nearly four years following Wu's remarks, with the company's market capitalization increasing by approximately US$28 billion in the trading session that followed. The market reaction reflected investor enthusiasm for Alibaba's renewed strategic clarity and its willingness to commit significant capital to the AI sector.

Wu's AI strategy encompasses not only infrastructure investment but also a broader vision for artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI). During his September 2025 speech, Wu articulated Alibaba's view that AGI represents a "new start" for the company and the broader technology industry. This framing positioned Alibaba's AI investments as part of a long-term strategic bet on the development of increasingly capable AI systems, rather than merely an incremental enhancement of existing products and services.

Cloud Computing Growth

A key component of Wu's strategy has been the expansion of Alibaba's cloud computing division, Alibaba Cloud (also known as Aliyun), which serves as both a profit center and the primary platform for delivering AI capabilities to enterprise customers. Under Wu's leadership, Alibaba Cloud has experienced a significant acceleration in revenue growth, driven in large part by demand for AI-related computing services.

In November 2025, Alibaba reported a 34% year-on-year increase in cloud computing revenue, which reached 39.8 billion yuan for the quarter. This growth rate represented a marked improvement over previous quarters and was attributed primarily to increased enterprise adoption of AI services hosted on Alibaba's cloud platform. The strong cloud performance contributed to a positive market reaction, with Alibaba's shares rising following the earnings announcement.

Wu has emphasized the development of what Alibaba describes as "super-scale" computing infrastructure to meet the growing demand for AI computing power. In November 2025, he outlined plans for a "super AI cloud" that would incorporate the technology required to serve the industry's expanding computing needs. This initiative reflects Wu's strategy of positioning Alibaba Cloud as the infrastructure backbone for China's AI ecosystem, providing the computational resources that AI developers and enterprises require to train and deploy large-scale AI models.

Stance on AI Investment and Market Concerns

Wu has taken a notably confident public position regarding the sustainability and importance of AI investment, even as some market observers and analysts have raised concerns about a potential AI bubble. In November 2025, during an earnings call, Wu stated that he did not see "much of an issue" with an AI bubble and indicated that Alibaba planned to invest "aggressively" in AI going forward.

This public posture contrasted with more cautious approaches taken by some other technology company leaders who had begun to acknowledge the risks of overinvestment in AI infrastructure. Wu's confidence was buttressed by Alibaba's strong cloud revenue growth and by the broader competitive dynamics of the Chinese AI market, where major technology companies including Baidu, Tencent, and Huawei were also making substantial investments in AI capabilities. Wu's willingness to commit to aggressive spending reflected his view that the competitive consequences of underinvesting in AI would be more severe than the risks of overinvestment.

The combination of Wu's AI-focused strategy, the substantial capital commitments, and the resulting cloud computing growth contributed to a significant recovery in Alibaba's stock price during 2025, reversing a portion of the declines that had occurred in the preceding years.

Personal Life

Eddie Wu maintains a relatively low public profile compared to some other prominent technology executives. He holds Singaporean citizenship. Beyond his role at Alibaba, limited information about his personal life is available in public sources.

Wu's long tenure at Alibaba, spanning from the company's founding in 1999 through his appointment as CEO in 2023, represents a career spent almost entirely within a single organization. This extensive institutional history has been noted by commentators as a distinguishing characteristic of his leadership, providing him with a deep understanding of Alibaba's corporate culture, operational complexities, and strategic evolution over more than two decades.

Recognition

Eddie Wu's leadership of Alibaba has received significant attention from financial markets and the business media, particularly following his articulation of the company's AI investment strategy in 2025. His September 2025 speech on Alibaba's AGI and ASI strategy was credited with driving a US$28 billion increase in Alibaba's market capitalization in a single trading session, one of the most significant single-day gains for a Chinese technology company.

The speech, which lasted approximately 23 minutes, was widely covered by major financial news outlets including Bloomberg, the South China Morning Post, and CNBC, and was analyzed by technology-focused publications for its strategic implications regarding China's approach to AI development. The market response to Wu's strategic announcements in 2025 was interpreted as an endorsement of his leadership and of Alibaba's strategic direction under his guidance.

Wu's role in overseeing the acceleration of Alibaba Cloud's revenue growth has also been recognized within the technology industry. The 34% year-on-year increase in cloud computing revenue reported in November 2025 placed Alibaba among the fastest-growing major cloud providers globally during that period and reinforced the company's position as the leading cloud infrastructure provider in China.

As one of the original co-founders of Alibaba who returned to a central leadership role more than two decades after the company's founding, Wu's career trajectory has been noted as unusual in the technology industry, where founding team members often depart before a company reaches the scale and complexity that Alibaba has achieved.

Legacy

Eddie Wu's tenure as CEO of Alibaba Group, while still in its early years as of late 2025, has already been defined by a decisive strategic pivot toward artificial intelligence. His commitment of more than US$53 billion to AI infrastructure represents one of the largest such investment plans announced by any technology company globally and has positioned Alibaba as a central player in the intensifying competition to develop advanced AI systems.

Wu's leadership has been characterized by a return to Alibaba's technology-centric identity. By foregrounding AI development, cloud computing expansion, and long-term infrastructure investment, Wu has sought to differentiate Alibaba from competitors who have focused more heavily on short-term profitability or consumer-facing services. His articulation of a vision encompassing AGI and ASI has set ambitious technological goals for the company and has signaled to the broader market that Alibaba intends to compete at the frontier of AI research and development.

The practical impact of Wu's strategy has been visible in Alibaba's financial performance, particularly in its cloud computing division. The 34% growth in cloud revenue reported in November 2025, driven significantly by AI-related demand, provided early evidence that the strategic direction was translating into commercial results. Wu's dismissal of AI bubble concerns and his commitment to continued aggressive investment indicated that Alibaba's AI-centric strategy would remain the company's primary focus for the foreseeable future.

As a co-founder who spent more than 24 years within the Alibaba ecosystem before assuming the CEO role, Wu represents a form of leadership continuity that connects the company's origins in a Hangzhou apartment in 1999 to its current status as a global technology conglomerate. His leadership will ultimately be assessed by whether the substantial investments in AI that he has championed generate returns commensurate with their scale and whether Alibaba can maintain and strengthen its competitive position in both the Chinese and global technology markets.