Alibaba (BABA) - Get Report co-founder and executive vice chairman Joseph Tsai on Tuesday discussed the future of the Chinese e-commerce giant and how it plans to expand within the U.S.

Alibaba intends to create 1 million jobs in the U.S. through "leverage," efficiently providing access to millions of Chinese consumers, Tsai said at the WSJ D.Live Conference 2017 on Tuesday.

Tsai also laid out the company's plans for expanding its presence within the artificial intelligence space, via his "Cigar theory."

Cigar is the vice chairman's "CUBA" acronym standing for cloud computing, use case, big data, and algorithm. The move is rooted in the fact that the current Chinese cloud market is what it was in the U.S. seven years ago, Tsai noted.

Tsia also stated that Alibaba plans to invest $15 billion over the next three years on R&D.

Shares of Alibaba were lower over 1.3% in midday trading on Tuesday, but shares of the company have surged nearly 100% year-to-date.

And Alibaba didn't make Jim Cramer's list of the best artificial intelligence companies:

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