GSUI

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) stock rose nearly 4% in Wednesday’s premarket trading as improving sentiment toward Chinese equities coincided with the company’s push to expand its Qwen artificial intelligence ecosystem.

China Policy Support Boosts Sentiment

The gains followed reports that the People’s Bank of China plans to meet with regulators and major banks to discuss improvements to a lending program that supports share buybacks and increased shareholdings.

The discussions follow a difficult October for Chinese equities. The CSI 300 fell 8.5% and recorded 12 consecutive weekly declines.

The policy developments helped lift Chinese stocks, suggesting Alibaba’s gains were part of a broader market rebound.

Apple Partnership Expands Qwen’s Reach

Separately, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) plans to integrate Alibaba’s Qwen AI models into Apple Intelligence in China, with a rollout expected in December.

Qwen will support Siri, writing tools and visual intelligence. These features include text generation, image creation and document analysis, Asia News Network reported Monday.

CEO Eddie Wu said the partnership would bring new AI-powered experiences to Chinese consumers.

Alibaba Turns AI Into Consumer Products

Alibaba is also expanding Qwen’s commercial reach through its e-commerce platforms.

During Singles’ Day, a Taobao and Tmall livestream sold nearly 100,000 QwenWork monthly subscriptions in about 30 minutes.

The sales represented roughly 2 trillion AI tokens, the South China Morning Post reported Tuesday, citing company data.

Alibaba has also introduced AI tokens as a separate product category on Tmall. Its AI hardware offerings include laptops, voice recorders and desktop robots.

Open-Source AI Drives Expansion

Chairman Joe Tsai said open-source technology remains central to Alibaba’s AI strategy.

Qwen now has more than 470 open-source variants, over 4 billion downloads and more than 330,000 derivative models, according to a South China Morning Post report Tuesday.

Tsai said Alibaba is using roughly $25 billion in free cash flow from its core e-commerce business to fund AI development.

The company has also doubled its computing capital spending annually over the past three years.

AI Chip Shortages Pose Challenges

Alibaba and other Chinese technology giants continue to face limited access to advanced AI processors.

Chinese companies reportedly ordered about 6 million NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) RTX Pro 5500 chips. However, they expect only a small portion of those orders to arrive over the coming months.

The shortages could increase demand for Alibaba’s in-house T-Head chips and domestic AI infrastructure.

Earnings And Analyst Outlook

Alibaba is expected to report earnings Nov. 24, 2026.

Analysts forecast earnings of $1.39 per share, up from 61 cents a year earlier. Revenue is expected to reach $40.35 billion, compared with $34.81 billion last year.

The stock trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.5.

ETF Exposure

Alibaba has a 2.49% weighting in the Schwab Emerging Markets Equity ETF (NYSE:SCHE), a 1.50% weighting in the JPMorgan ActiveBuilders Emerging Markets Equity ETF (NASDAQ:JEMA) and a 1.84% weighting in the Russell Investments Emerging Markets Equity ETF (NASDAQ:REMG).

Fund inflows and outflows could influence demand for Alibaba shares.

BABA Price Action

BABA Price Action: Alibaba shares gained 3.60% to $103.97 in Wednesday’s premarket trading, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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