Alibaba AI Chief Predicts 90% of Current AI Projects Will Fail Within a Decade

Wang Jian, Alibaba's AI chief and a key architect of the company's rise to tech dominance, delivers a sobering prognosis for the artificial intelligence sector. "90% of today's AI projects will vanish within five to ten years," he asserts, attributing this impending collapse to fundamental misunderstandings of the technology's Core principles.

The critique strikes at the HYPE surrounding generative AI, with Wang singling out OpenAI for creating distorted expectations. "What we're seeing is a form of bias," he explains, suggesting chatbot mania has diverted attention from substantive applications. His warning carries weight—under his leadership, Alibaba's computing innovations have redefined e-commerce infrastructure across Asia.

Yet the forecast isn't purely apocalyptic. Wang anticipates this reckoning will force developers toward genuine innovation, echoing his own trajectory at Microsoft Research Asia where unconventional thinking yielded breakthroughs. The shakeout, while severe, may ultimately strengthen the AI ecosystem by separating speculative ventures from transformative technologies.