Aliyun has just announced a very aggressive round of price increases, and this reflects a reality that has been happening in the AI infrastructure market. We are talking about increases of up to 34% in computing and storage products, which is quite significant.

What draws attention is the justification behind this. Besides the obvious pressure from the growing global demand for AI and supply chain costs, there is something that many people are not paying attention to: the explosive increase in token call volumes. Aliyun is feeling this firsthand, especially with the Bailian service, which is their MaaS platform. In the first three months of this year, Bailian experienced historic growth, something that was really not expected.

The specific products affected include computing chips like the Pingtouge Zhenwu 810E, with increases ranging from 5% to 34% depending on the configuration, and the CPFS for intelligent storage, which went up 30%. This shows that Aliyun is prioritizing scarce AI resources for the token business, which is where exponential growth is happening now.

It’s a move that makes sense from a business perspective, but it also signals that AI infrastructure is operating at its limit. When you see a company like Aliyun making adjustments of this size, it’s because demand has truly exploded and costs are really being pressured.