Alibaba Bets Big On AI With New Cloud Tools As Jack Ma Reemerges In Company Comeback

Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE BABA) co-founder Jack Ma appeared at Alibaba Cloud’s campus in Hangzhou on Thursday to celebrate its 15th anniversary, SCMP reports.

On Wednesday, Alibaba’s cloud unit showcased its Blossom project, which aims to accelerate AI adoption by providing its clients with infrastructure, AI models, data, and other services.

The company upgraded global AI tools with Qwen-Max, a new reasoning model, and $1/year developer kits.

Also Read: China’s DeepSeek Teams Up With Tsinghua University To Raise AI Bar, Boost Reasoning Capabilities

Alibaba committed at least 380 billion yuan ($52 billion) in cloud computing and AI infrastructure over the next three years.

Chinese AI upstart DeepSeek’s emergence in January, claiming to outdo OpenAI models at a fraction of their cost, prompted global companies to launch their affordable offerings to win market share.

Ma stepped down from all his corporate roles and maintained a low profile since Chinese regulators scrapped the initial public offering of his fintech giant Ant Group and initiated an antitrust crackdown on domestic giants, including Alibaba. However, he remains a shareholder and spiritual leader.

Lately, Ma has frequently appeared at Alibaba offices as the Chinese e-commerce juggernaut eyes a turnaround and aspires to evolve into an AI powerhouse.

At Alipay’s 20th anniversary in December 2024, Ma stressed the importance of AI. Ma also made it to Beijing’s symposium chaired by President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Alibaba Cloud is China’s largest cloud service provider, with over one-third of the market.

The stock has lost over 19% in the last seven days, coinciding with President Trump’s tariffs on its trading partners, including China. Trump announced a 125% tariff on Chinese imports. China’s finance ministry announced a total of 84% tariff on all goods imported from the U.S., effective April 10.

Alibaba reported fiscal third-quarter 2024 revenue growth of 8% to $38.38 billion, beating the analyst consensus estimate of $38.19 billion. Adjusted earnings per ADS of $2.93 beat the analyst consensus estimate of $2.66. Adjusted net income rose 7% to $7 billion. Cloud Intelligence Group revenue grew by 13% to $4.35 billion.

On April 8, Citigroup reiterated a Buy rating on Alibaba with a price target of $169, down from the prior $170.

UBS Global Wealth Management has advised investors in Chinese stocks to adopt a defensive strategy, expecting higher market volatility before the tariff announcement.

Price Action: BABA stock traded lower by 0.59% to $104.06 at the last check on Thursday.

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