Alibaba Intensifies AI Competition with New Model and Massive Investment

Alibaba Expands AI Intern Workforce While DeepSeek Slashes Model Prices in Market Battle - Alibaba Gr Hldgs (NYSE:BABA)

Alibaba Group Holding BABA commenced its spring hiring season with 3,000 internship openings spanning multiple business units, half of which were in artificial intelligence. Nearly half of the roles, including more than 80% of positions in the cloud computing arm, are AI-focused, SCMP reports. Alibaba was among the first major global tech companies to open-source its large-scale AI models. Also Read: US Listed China Stocks Rally: Alibaba's Performance, President Xi's Support, DeepSeek AI Boost Investor Confidence Alibaba's move coincided with DeepSeek's AI model price war, offering discounted off-peak pricing for developers. Chinese tech companies like Alibaba and its rivals were already engaged in a price war to win market share. The first phase of the intern recruitment will focus on Alibaba Group, Alibaba Cloud and its AI-model research unit Tongyi Lab, food delivery service Ele.me, online mapping service and ride-hailing platform Amap, and video-gaming subsidiary Lingxi. The next stage will cover the Taobao and Tmall Group e-commerce units, the Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, and logistics service provider Cainiao. Alibaba announced on Monday that it plans to invest at least $52.2 billion in AI and cloud computing infrastructure over the next three years, topping its total AI infrastructure spending over the past decade. Benchmark's Fawne Jiang hailed Alibaba as a leading player in China's AI sector, backed by a competitive edge in infrastructure, proprietary models, and application capacity across diverse use cases. Price Action: BABA stock is down 4.61% at $130.42 premarket at the last check Friday. Also Read: Taiwan Semiconductor Poised For Surge, Goldman Sachs Predicts Rising Demand For Taipei-Traded Stock: Report Photo courtesy Shutterstock BABAAlibaba Group Holding Ltd$130.50-4.43%OverviewMarket News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Alibaba And DeepSeek Intensify AI Showdown, Challenge OpenAI Market Dominance - Alibaba Gr Hldgs (NYSE:BABA)

After nearly three weeks of suspension, Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek has reopened access to its core programming interface, resuming a service key to broader adoption of an AI model. Bloomberg reported that DeepSeek suspended top-ups in early February due to capacity constraints. The 20-month-old Chinese startup's emergence in January cost Nvidia Corp NVDA $600 billion in market cap in a single day as it said its chatbot could rival OpenAI's ChatGPT, which it developed at a fraction of the cost of its rivals. Also Read: Zoom Eyes AI-Powered Growth, Analyst Highlights Innovation Momentum, Revenue Challenges On Wednesday, DeepSeek launched discounted off-peak pricing for developers, Reuters reports. The Chinese AI startup announced up to 75% discount between 1630 GMT and 0030 GMT. Chinese tech companies like Alibaba Group Holding' BABA and its rivals were already engaged in a price war to win more market share. DeepSeek's move coincided with Alibaba's launch of a preview of its latest model, QwQ-Max. On Wednesday, Alibaba told Reuters its video- and image-generating artificial intelligence model Wan 2.1 is now publicly available or open source. The models are available globally on Alibaba Cloud's ModelScope and HuggingFace platforms for academic, research, and commercial. TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd also said it's testing a self-developed deep reasoning model. Alibaba has committed to a $53 billion investment over three years to bolster its cloud computing and AI infrastructure. The proposed investment tops the company's total spending on AI infrastructure over the past decade and equates to around half the initial $100 billion investment earmarked for the United States' Stargate Project to boost AI infrastructure. Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu Yongming met Chongqing party secretary and Politburo member Yuan Jiajun on Tuesday to discuss potential AI collaborations, SCMP reports. Price Action: BABA stock is up 4.94% at $140.68 premarket at the last check Wednesday. Also Read: Intel Deploys ASML's Advanced EUV Machines, Aims to Challenge Taiwan Semiconductor's Lead Image via Shutterstock BABAAlibaba Group Holding Ltd$140.004.47%OverviewNVDANVIDIA Corp$129.802.50%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Alibaba Doubles Down On AI, Launches QwQ-Max to Challenge OpenAI and DeepSeek - Alibaba Gr Hldgs (NYSE:BABA)

On Tuesday, Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding BABA showcased its next reasoning model, QwQ-Max. This model could rival industry-leading competitors, including OpenAI's o1 and DeepSeek's R1. The Qwen team said that QwQ-Max-Preview is free on the Qwen chatbot website, SCMP reports. Also Read: US Listed China Stocks Rally: Alibaba's Performance, President Xi's Support, DeepSeek AI Boost Investor Confidence The company's release of QwQ-Max-Preview coincided with the DeepSeek campaign to make five of its code repositories public. Qwen's latest reasoning model is part of an AI system replicating how humans think, make decisions, and solve problems. The Qwen team said it would open-source its coming QwQ-Max model and the base version of Qwen 2.5 Max. On Monday, Alibaba committed $53 billion to cloud and AI infrastructure over the next three years. Alibaba plans to release smaller open-source reasoning models as demand rises for lightweight and resource-efficient solutions. Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings TCEHY, Alibaba, and ByteDance have increased orders for Nvidia Corp's NVDA H20 AI chips. Benchmark's Fawne Jiang raised his price target on Alibaba, citing AI growth and e-commerce rebound. Price Action: BABA stock is up 4.45% at $134.76 premarket at the last check on Tuesday. Read Next: AMD Reshapes Strategy, Plans $4 Billion Data Center Asset Sale While Doubling Down on GPUs Photo by Ascannio via Shutterstock BABAAlibaba Group Holding Ltd$134.454.19%OverviewNVDANVIDIA Corp$131.430.88%TCEHYTencent Holdings Ltd$62.361.17%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Alibaba previews new AI reasoning model to challenge DeepSeek R1, OpenAI o1

Signage for e-commerce giant Alibaba is seen on a building in the Xuhui district in Shanghai, Feb. 22. AFP-Yonhap Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding on Tuesday unveiled a preview of its next reasoning model QwQ-Max, which could rival industry-leading competitors including OpenAI's o1 and DeepSeek's R1, heating up the global artificial intelligence (AI) race. The Qwen team said that QwQ-Max-Preview -- built on the most advanced model of the series, the Qwen 2.5-Max introduced last month -- displayed stronger and more versatile reasoning and problem-solving skills. The preview model has been made available for free on the Qwen chatbot website. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. Qwen's latest reasoning model -- which belongs to a type of AI system designed to replicate how humans think, make decisions and solve problems -- follows Alibaba's recent announcement of a mega AI infrastructure plan, highlighting the company's commitment to developing the fast-developing technology. Alibaba on Monday pledged to invest $53 billion on cloud and AI infrastructure over the next three years, marking China's largest-ever computing project financed by a single private business. The move is set to fuel competition in the domestic AI market as local companies across various industries, as well as government agencies, rush to embrace DeepSeek's open-source R1 reasoning model. The Qwen team said it would open-source its coming QwQ-Max model, as well as the base version of Qwen 2.5 Max. "We are committed to democratising access to advanced reasoning capabilities and fostering innovation across diverse applications," the team said in its statement, adding that it would soon release a mobile app for the Qwen chatbot. Alibaba also plans to release a series of smaller-sized open-source reasoning models as demand rises for lightweight and resource-efficient solutions that can be adapted to various devices. The company's release of QwQ-Max-Preview coincided with a week-long campaign by crosstown rival DeepSeek to make five of its code repositories public. In the first two days, the start-up published two projects that aimed to squeeze the best performance out of each chip for cost-efficient model training and inference tasks. Read the full story at SCMP.