What's Going On With Alibaba Stock Wednesday?

Alibaba Group Holding Limited BABA stock and peers are trading higher Wednesday amid reports of the Chinese tech supervisor's pledge to support artificial intelligence computing push.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology pledged Wednesday to expand computing power to drive breakthroughs in generative AI, which Beijing increasingly prioritizes in its ongoing technological race with the U.S. 

The ministry looks to launch measures to guide "high-quality" development of computing networks and large language models, Bloomberg cites MIIT spokesman Zhao Zhiguo.

Also Read: US Semiconductor Companies Try To Convince Government Against Stringent China Policy

In July, regulators eased some of the guardrails they proposed for ChatGPT-style services months ago.

The U.S. has blocked Chinese companies' ability to buy advanced chips, including some Nvidia Corp NVDA products for developing artificial intelligence capabilities.

China's major internet companies, from Alibaba to Baidu Inc BIDU and JD.com Inc JD, are amid efforts to build the country's equivalent to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Meanwhile, U.S. chipmaker executives, including Intel Corp INTC, Qualcomm Inc QCOM, and Nvidia Corp NVDA, tried to canvass U.S. government officials to go softer on the China policy.

In 2022, China accounted for $180 billion in semiconductor purchases, more than a third of the worldwide total of $555.9 billion, and the largest single market.

Price Action: BABA shares traded higher by 2.11% at $93.12 premarket on the last check Wednesday.

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