MiniMax Boosts Alibaba Cloud Spending as AI Compute Demand Soars
MiniMax扩大阿里云合作，AI算力需求快速增长
中国人工智能公司MiniMax正在大幅增加对阿里云的支出，以满足不断增长的算力需求。这家总部位于上海的AI公司已将与阿里巴巴云计算服务相关的三年采购上限提高至12亿美元，比此前增加220%。MiniMax原本计划在2026年最多花费1.15亿美元购买阿里云服务。但截至6月底，公司已经用掉了约三分之二的预算，因此将2026年的支出上限提高到了3亿美元。与此同时，MiniMax对阿里API服务的预算也明显增加。2026年的API支出上限从65万美元提高到750万美元，超过原来的10倍。三年累计API支出上限达到6250万美元，接近此前上限的20倍。
Chinese AI company MiniMax is sharply increasing its spending on Alibaba Cloud as demand for computing power rises. The Shanghai-based firm has raised the three-year ceiling for its cloud computing purchases from Alibaba to US$1.2 billion, a 220% increase from the previous limit.
MiniMax originally planned to spend up to US$115 million on Alibaba Cloud services in 2026. But after using about two-thirds of that budget by the end of June, the company raised its 2026 spending ceiling to US$300 million.
Under the revised agreement, MiniMax’s annual spending limits will also increase significantly in the following years. The 2027 ceiling will rise from US$125 million to US$400 million, while the 2028 limit will increase from US$135 million to US$500 million.
The company is also expanding its spending on Alibaba’s API services. Its 2026 budget for these services has jumped from US$650,000 to US$7.5 million, more than ten times the previous limit. Over three years, its API spending ceiling will reach US$62.5 million, nearly 20 times the previous amount.
The spending increases highlight how quickly AI companies are consuming computing resources. MiniMax needs large amounts of cloud computing capacity not only to train increasingly powerful AI models, but also to run inference when users interact with those models.
The deal also shows the growing importance of cloud infrastructure providers such as Alibaba Cloud to China’s AI industry. As AI models become larger and more widely used, developers are facing rapidly rising costs for computing power, making access to scalable cloud infrastructure increasingly important.
