{
  "id": 3919573,
  "title": "MiniMax expands Alibaba cloud pact as compute needs surge for training and inference",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/28/minimax-expands-alibaba-cloud-pact-as-compute-needs-surge-for",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-08-28T08:00:14.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "South China Morning Post",
    "slug": "south-china-morning-post",
    "url": "https://www.scmp.com/tech/article/3365558/minimax-expands-alibaba-cloud-pact-compute-needs-surge-training-and-inference"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "MiniMax, a Chinese AI firm, has significantly increased its cloud computing deal with Alibaba Group Holding, raising the purchase ceiling by 220% to US$1.2 billion. This surge in demand for computing power among top AI developers is reflected in MiniMax's plan to spend up to US$300 million on Alibaba Cloud services this year, nearly tripling its original budget. The revised agreement through 2028 sees annual spending limits on Alibaba Cloud services jump to US$400 million for 2027 and US$500 million for 2028, while its application programming interface (API) service budget has been expanded tenfold, with a new 2026 cap of US$7.5 million. These revisions highlight MiniMax's expanding compute needs for model training and live inference, driven by its M-series large language models, H3 video-generation model, and popular consumer app Hailuo AI. The aggressive revisions also underscore an industry-wide shift in China's generative AI landscape from foundational model training to scaling compute-heavy inference workloads.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "SCMP Business",
        "title": "MiniMax expands Alibaba cloud pact as compute needs surge for training and inference",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/28/minimax-expands-alibaba-cloud-pact-as-compute-needs-surge-for-3924088",
        "published": "2026-08-28T08:00:14.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}