Alibaba expands its AI platform with NVIDIA tools for robotics
Alibaba Cloud upgrades its Platform for AI (PAI) with NVIDIA’s full software stack for so-called physical AI, enabling developers to train and deploy robots in the real world.
Alibaba Cloud announced the expansion at the Apsara Conference on September 24, 2025. The company is offering cloud building blocks for teams working at the intersection of AI and robotics, from synthetic‑data generation to training, simulation, validation, and deployment.
The stack is expected to include NVIDIA tools from the Isaac ecosystem. That covers simulators and workflows for transferring robot skills from virtual environments to real‑world production (“sim‑to‑real”), along with libraries for motion planning and control. With PAI, these workflows can run as managed cloud services without wrestling with intermediate infrastructure.
Alibaba says the approach should speed up experimentation and shorten the path from prototype to pilot across manufacturing, logistics, and pharma. The platform is also positioned as a sandbox for training and testing humanoid robots.
For developers, this means access to familiar NVIDIA toolchains in one place, tightly integrated with Alibaba Cloud services for data and compute management. Company representatives at the conference said cloud packaging should make it easier to build digital twins, debug “sim‑to‑real” scenarios, and run large validation campaigns without tedious local setup.
The collaboration aligns with NVIDIA’s broader bet on robotics as a growth market, as the company continues to promote software stacks and models for robot control across environments. For Alibaba, it’s a way to strengthen the ecosystem around PAI and offer customers ready‑made modules for projects where AI interacts with the physical world.
The timeline for general availability and the full list of components landing in PAI will be clarified as the rollout progresses.
A key question is how the partnership will evolve amid reports that Chinese regulators have banned large companies from buying AI chips from U.S. vendors.
