October 21, 2025 · 24-Hour AI Briefing: AWS Outage Sparks Global Chaos, Meituan Launches VitaBench, Goldman Sachs Backs Alibaba’s AI Growth
Over the past 24 hours, the global AI and tech landscape once again saw dramatic shifts — from Amazon’s massive AWS outage to Meituan’s real-world AI benchmark release, and Goldman Sachs’ bullish forecast on Alibaba’s cloud and AI future.
Power, intelligence, and trust remain the defining forces of this new digital economy.
1. Amazon AWS Outage Disrupts the Internet Worldwide
Amazon’s AWS cloud service suffered a major outage in its US-East region, causing DynamoDB to fail and triggering disruptions across industries. The impact was massive — affecting AI firms like Claude, OpenAI, Perplexity, Duolingo, and Manus, as well as major consumer and entertainment platforms such as Robinhood, Coinbase, Venmo, Chime, Disney+, Apple TV, Snapchat, Reddit, Roblox, Fortnite, Steam, PlayStation Network, Xbox, and even McDonald’s app systems.
Commentary:
This outage once again exposes the global internet’s dangerous dependence on a single cloud zone. Even the world’s largest companies can’t escape the domino effect of a regional infrastructure failure. From AI to fintech, entertainment to social media, nearly everyone lives on the same “cloud street.”
When AWS fails, the world waits. The lesson is clear: multi-cloud and distributed architecture are no longer optional — they’re essential for resilience.
2. Meituan’s LongCat Team Launches VitaBench — A Real-World AI Agent Evaluation Framework
China’s Meituan LongCat team officially launched VitaBench, an evaluation framework built around three high-frequency real-life scenarios — food delivery, dining, and travel. The system includes 66 interactive tools designed to measure AI agents’ decision-making, tool use, and contextual reasoning across multiple domains.
Commentary:
VitaBench is a rare attempt to bring “real-world complexity” into AI evaluation. Rather than relying on abstract or synthetic benchmarks, it tests how AI agents perform in dynamic, service-oriented environments.
Can an AI assistant truly understand ambiguous instructions, make logical tool calls, and adapt to user intent in context?
This marks an important step toward measuring not just intelligence, but usefulness. The next move from Meituan LongCat could define how the world evaluates “applied AI.”
3. Goldman Sachs Names Alibaba as a Global Growth Leader, Citing Cloud and AI Momentum
Goldman Sachs has upgraded Alibaba to its “Global Growth Picks” list, forecasting a 1.5% annual acceleration in earnings through 2028. The firm cited strong growth in Alibaba Cloud, breakthroughs in AI, and early recovery in e-commerce operations, along with accelerating international expansion.
Commentary:
Optimism around Alibaba isn’t unfounded. Alibaba Cloud is rapidly forming an integrated “Model + Cloud + Application” ecosystem, with its Qwen (Tongyi Qianwen) models expanding into finance, retail, and manufacturing.
The company is evolving from a basic infrastructure provider to a smart-enablement platform.
At the same time, signs of e-commerce recovery — from higher engagement on Taobao and Tmall to a rebound in livestream and cross-border retail — are injecting fresh momentum into revenue growth.
Goldman’s confidence reflects Alibaba’s tangible progress toward AI commercialization.
For more cutting-edge AI insights, business intelligence, and technology trends, visit:
https://iaiseek.com/en
Want to catch up on the last 48 hours of major AI news? Read: