MiniMax Significantly Increases Alibaba Cloud Spending Amid AI Growth
Shanghai-based AI firm triples cloud service budget and expands API spending ceiling following surge in enterprise sales.
Quick Look
Shanghai-based AI startup MiniMax has tripled its 2024 Alibaba Cloud budget to $300 million and increased its three-year API spending ceiling to $62.5 million, citing rising compute needs for model training and a 283% surge in first-half revenue.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
MiniMax is a Shanghai-based AI company known for its M-series large language models and the Hailuo AI consumer application.
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.
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.
Open Questions
- What specific enterprise projects are driving the 700% sales increase?
