New Delhi, May 13 -- Shares of US-listed Chinese giant Alibaba surged nearly 8% on Wednesday after leadership provided a clear three-to-five-year outlook for artificial intelligence returns. The firm anticipates exceeding its original 380 billion yuan ($55.96 billion) three-year AI investment plan, as early returns encourage a rapid expansion of cloud-computing capacity.

However, the company missed fourth-quarter profit forecasts. Like its peers, Alibaba is capitalizing on the AI boom; revenue from its Cloud Intelligence Group climbed 38% to 41.63 billion yuan ($6.13 billion), slightly outpacing the previous quarter's growth. Alibaba has yet to specify a new spending target to replace the one set last year.

"The return on our investment...