In a rapidly evolving technological landscape, artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just a buzzword—it’s a foundational force reshaping industries on a global scale. Nowhere is this more apparent than in healthcare and cloud infrastructure, where major players like Alibaba Cloud are setting new benchmarks and experts are sounding both notes of optimism and caution regarding AI’s expanding influence.
On January 8, 2026, Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave: AI Infrastructure Solutions, Q4 2025 report. This recognition placed Alibaba Cloud among the top five leaders out of 13 global vendors evaluated, highlighting its current offerings and strategic vision. According to Forrester, Alibaba Cloud achieved the highest score—an impressive 5.00—on seven out of 13 criteria, including configuration, data management, management-operations, fault tolerance, efficiency, and deployment locale. In the strategy category, Alibaba Cloud also scored highest for its roadmap and pricing flexibility and transparency.
Forrester’s report praised Alibaba Cloud’s coordinated approach to architecture, infrastructure upgrades, and governance, noting that its roadmap addresses not just current, but long-term AI needs. The report also commended Alibaba Cloud’s simple, transparent pricing model, which makes it easier for customers to plan and adopt services compared to competitors. Customers further expressed high appreciation for the platform’s performance, scalability, speed of open-source innovation, and the quality of its customer service—qualities that have become essential as AI adoption accelerates across sectors.
Jiangwei Jiang, Senior Researcher and General Manager of Infrastructure Products at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, remarked, “This recognition from Forrester confirms our commitment to building a cloud and AI infrastructure foundation that will drive the future digital economy.”
Backing up its leadership status, Alibaba Group announced in February 2025 a massive investment plan: at least 380 billion yuan (approximately Rp914 trillion) over three years to accelerate the development of cloud and AI infrastructure. This move aims to reinforce Alibaba Cloud’s capacity to support the next wave of AI innovation, ensuring that businesses and developers have a robust, reliable platform for growth and experimentation.
Yet, as AI’s promise grows, so do its challenges—especially in healthcare. According to a January 2026 analysis by TechTarget, experts predict that AI will continue to expand its role in healthcare this year, enabling workflow efficiencies, enhancing care delivery, and even bolstering cyberattack defenses. Shannon Germain Farraher, a senior analyst at Forrester, put it plainly: “AI is set to explode this year, and I don’t say that to be dramatic. I say it because we are already seeing it.”
Forrester’s 2026 predictions report suggested that at least one major health system will deploy a patient-facing AI agent to analyze medical records this year. The report stated, “As AI use cases expand, a major health system will boldly deploy agents to deliver personalized EHR analyses. With plain language search and summaries, this system will transform EHR data into actionable insights—empowering patients to take more informed roles in their care.”
AI’s utility in healthcare is not limited to patient engagement. Skip Sorrels, field CTO and CISO at Claroty, highlighted how AI can strengthen cybersecurity programs: “AI is going to create a shift-left outcome that I think will be very positive. The ability for AI to interpret alerts versus humans that are having to look at them from a past and historical perspective, frees them up to really focus on the things that should be viewed or deemed as true alerts, true things to defend against, to react to.”
Beyond cybersecurity, AI is expected to improve care delivery through digital outreach, clinical decision support, and AI-powered scribes. However, the flip side of this innovation is a host of persistent—and in some cases, intensifying—challenges. As AI adoption rises, so do concerns about cybersecurity, privacy, and governance. Farraher pointed out, “The introduction or proliferation of AI is shining an even brighter light on areas that already needed to have focus and attention.”
Healthcare organizations, already grappling with budget and resource constraints, must now contend with the complexities of third-party risk management (TPRM). Forrester’s research found that only 44% of healthcare risk management decision-makers consider their TPRM process mature. As new AI vendors are brought on board, the risk surface expands. “So much of that has gone unchecked for a long time, but now that artificial intelligence is really coming to the forefront, you need it to be competitive. You need it to improve outcomes,” Farraher said. “I don’t believe that healthcare organizations are up to par yet and have a solid understanding of what they need to do to keep their organizations safe.”
Jackie Mattingly, senior director of consulting services for small and medium hospitals at Clearwater, echoed these concerns, noting that many hospitals—regardless of size—are eager to embrace AI but often lack the resources for thorough vendor risk assessments. This can lead to confusion about where AI is being used and how sensitive data is flowing through these new tools.
Privacy risks also loom large. Sorrels raised a critical question: “If we’re leveraging AI in healthcare, how do we know whether a patient has true informed consent?” The potential exposure of protected health information with new AI tools means that privacy experts must weigh the benefits of innovation against the imperative to preserve confidentiality and patient trust.
Governance is another area where the healthcare industry faces hurdles. Farraher observed, “I think that healthcare as an industry is actually doing phenomenal when it comes to innovation. How folks are going about implementing and executing that innovation is where the problem lies.” Without solid industry standards for security governance and due diligence, risks are amplified. Nana Ahwoi, EY Americas consumer and health cybersecurity industry leader, stressed the need for oversight, especially as organizations rapidly expand their non-human identity ecosystems with AI. The risk of “shadow AI”—unmanaged or unauthorized AI usage—remains a pressing concern.
Meanwhile, as healthcare organizations use AI to strengthen their defenses, cyberthreat actors are also leveraging AI to increase the volume and sophistication of attacks. Ahwoi pointed out, “The same way that health systems and other orgs are tapping into the power of AI to get better at their craft and think of creative ways of doing things and setting up agents, et cetera, hackers are also leveraging those exact same platforms, thinking about how to evade well-established malware detection capabilities, or write better [phishing] emails.”
Sorrels predicted, “That’s going to continue to accelerate. And the opposite side of it, it becomes necessary to understand your enemy and use the art of war, if you will, to prepare and better defend. And the use of AI is a force multiplier that will enable that.”
While the dual-use nature of AI presents both promise and peril, one thing is clear: thoughtful implementation, robust governance, and a relentless focus on security and privacy will be crucial as the AI revolution continues to reshape healthcare and beyond.