Shares of Chinese tech giant Alibaba have surged as investors cheered a series of recent moves by the company to strengthen its position in the AI race. The company’s shares, traded in Hong Kong, rose 5.9% to HK$151.80 on Friday, according to the WSJ.
Several pieces of news helped the market:
- $3.2 billion raised: The company announced plans to issue $3.2 billion in convertible bonds on Thursday. Approximately 80% of the proceeds will be allocated to developing its AI cloud infrastructure, including scaling data centers, upgrading technology, and enhancing services.
- New AI model launched: Alibaba also unveiled its latest AI model, Qwen3-Next, which is optimized for understanding long texts and has significantly lower training costs.
- Developing its own chips: Market sentiment also likely was boosted by reports that Alibaba and fellow Chinese giant Baidu are using in-house chips to train their AI models. Baidu shares rose 8.5% on the news.
The moves are part of an “AI plus cloud” strategy that CEO Eddie Wu has called one of Alibaba’s two main growth drivers, along with e-commerce.
The strategy is already paying off: Alibaba’s cloud division’s revenue grew 26% in the quarter ended June, driven by surging demand for AI services. In February, the company said it would invest at least $53 billion in the space over the next three years.