(Yicai) Sept. 25 -- Shares of Alibaba Group Holding surged after the Chinese internet giant’s cloud computing arm teamed up with US chipmaker Nvidia on physical artificial intelligence.

Alibaba [NYSE: BABA] closed 8.2 percent up at USD176.44 yesterday. In Hong Kong, the firm’s stock [HKG: 9988] closed unchanged at HKD174 (USD22.37) today, after surging 9.2 percent yesterday.

Alibaba Cloud’s Platform for AI will integrate the full suite of Nvidia’s Physical AI software stack, including Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, Cosmos, and Physical AI databases, the Hangzhou-based firm announced yesterday.

Physical AI lets autonomous systems, such as robots, self-driving cars, and smart spaces, perceive, understand, and perform complex actions in the real world, according to Nvidia’s website. It is also often referred to as a “generative physical AI” because of its ability to generate insights and actions.

Combined with Alibaba Cloud’s big data and AI platform capabilities, the cooperation with Nvidia will further shorten the development cycle for applications, such as embodied intelligence and assisted driving, Alibaba Cloud noted.

Artificial general intelligence is now a certainty, but that is just a starting point, Alibaba’s Chief Executive Officer Eddie Wu said at the Aspara Conference 2025 yesterday. The ultimate goal is to develop artificial superintelligence capable of self-iteration and surpassing humans in all aspects, he added.

In the AI era, large models will be the next-generation operating system, and the ASI cloud will be the next-generation computer, Wu noted. An ASI cloud requires ultra-large-scale infrastructure and full-stack technical expertise, he pointed out, adding that in the future, there may only be five to six ASI cloud computing platforms worldwide.

Alibaba Cloud will continue to increase its investment to welcome the arrival of the ASI era, according to Wu.

Editor: Futura Costaglione