Profit surge at Chinese tech giant Alibaba, live from the UK. This is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. I'm William Lee Adams. Good morning.

Shares in Alibaba rose after the Chinese e-commerce giant reported a 34% increase in revenue for its cloud computing division, as well as triple-digit increases in sales

for its artificial intelligence-related products. The BBC's Asia business reporter, Nick Marsh,

says AI is now what drives its profitability. It has been very good for Alibaba. We talk a lot

about American tech, don't we? You know, the invidias and the Googles and metas, what have you.

Alibaba is kind of like the Amazon of China. It's invested very, very heavily in different parts of the business, so cloud

computing and AI. It's paying off. It seems 34% increase in revenue for this cloud division,

AI products, the sales going up with triple digit growth. They've already said they want to put

$58 billion into building

more AI systems over the next three years. Judging by these sales, they'll probably want to

invest some more. In fact, Eddie Wu, the chief executive, has said as much. But it shows you,

doesn't it? What were e-commerce platforms now can not only be just simply e-commerce platforms,

Ali Baba reaping the rewards.

Nick Marsh. Okay, let's do the numbers.

The MSCI Emerging Asia Index rose 1.2% in its third straight session of gains.

South Korean shares jumped 2.7% amid rising expectations of a U.S. interest rate cut next month.

And Taiwan's government says it will

spend an additional $40 billion on defense. The funds will be used to build a defense dome and to

purchase American weapons. The global shipping analyst Kepler says that India's oil imports from

Russia jumped 30 percent in November. That says refiners rush to secure imports ahead of a U.S.

deadline. The White House has demanded that India stops buying oil from Russian oil producers that are

sanctioned because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. India is the world's third largest oil importer

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