Alibaba’s $ 100 billion stock, fed AI, Jack Ma Return

In November 2023, Jack Ma posted an internal memo AlibabaCalling the e -commerce giant he helped to create to “fix his course”. The message was one of the most famous technological leaders in China before a company that is experiencing one of the most violent times in its history.

Alibaba’s shares were almost a record minimum, growth was delayed against the background of increased competition, changes in management were dense and fast, and Beijing still studied the company carefully. Ma himself barely was on a public view.

But his message may have vaccinated the new hope in Alibaba-giant e-commerce now sees the growth in its main business and has become one of the leading artificial intelligence players in China and in the world, competing with the likes of Openai and Deepseek. And Alibaba is now returning to the Chinese government.

This year, Alibaba shares on the US list have grown quietly by almost 60%, adding more than $ 100 billion to the company estimate.

“China Tech woke up to Alibaba, and investors around the world view it as the best way in China technology … and we agree. Alibaba is in a pole position to benefit from AI and Cloud Dent,” said the World Technology Head of the Wedbush Securities, CNBC.

CNBC talked to Alibaba chairman, as well as with former executives and analysts who drew photos of changes to the technology firm that led to the company’s return.

The fall of Alibaba was fast. Many attribute it to the start of the comments made by MA in October 2020, where he Seems criticizing China’s financial regulator.

The comments were not widely raised. A few days later, the Alibaba stock price reached a record and market capitalization exceeds $ 858 billion.

Alibaba rode on the wave of successes that she has seen she grows into the largest e -commerce player in China, with an international agenda and its Cloudy business is growing rapidly. Add raise north of $ 34 billionmaking it the biggest list in history.

A group of ants that was also founded MA is Financial Technology Company is behind AlipayOne of the two most famous mobile systems in China.

Literally two days before it is planned to enter the list in Shanghai and Hong Kong, IPO has been canceled. At the time, Murash referred to changes in the “regulatory setting” in China.

Next, there were several years of intensive control over the MA empire and the largest technology companies in China. The regulators clamped the practice from the giants they regarded as anti -compancing, pulling billions of fines on the company including Alibabacompulsive Changes in the structure of a group of ants and brought in a set of rules Touching many technologies.

In March 2023 Six separate business -groupsEveryone with the ability to collect financing on the border and publicly. Alibaba thought this step would make these units more agile.

Then came the reshuffle of the management. In June 2023 Alibaba announced that Daniel Zhang, who was CEO since 2015 and Chairman since 2019would have retreated from both roles to focus on cloud business. But only three months later Zhang suddenly throw a cloud block.

Eddi Wu, co -founder Alibaba, assumed the post of CEO and CLOUD leader. Joe Tsay, another co -founder, took on the role of the chairman.

It was one of the most violent times in Alibaba’s history.

“During this period of time, the great sense of uncertainty and confusion hovering over the staff. Although there was a mentality of the waiting, the problem was that many did not know how long it would be,” said Brian Wong, former Executive Director Alibaba and the author of “Tao Alibaba”.

“While China’s economy was initially reliable during the start of Covid, after the closure, everything turned, and the combination of disturbed supply chains and changes in the economic climate only excited where it all directed.”

“Large companies are moving very slowly, and this is because the decision-making structure is too complicated … So we really needed to return to agility and act quickly,” Tsai said CNBC CONVERGE LIVE An event in Singapore earlier this month, adding that rapid decision -making is key to compete rivals on launch.

Tai said that he decided the first thing they needed to do was “streamline the company.”

“Instead of talking about Alibaba as six different businesses, we talked about ourselves as two major electronic commerce and cloud calculations,” Tsai said.

“It has simplified everything and our communication. It is important that we report it to our employees. They must have a simple structure in their mind to move faster.”

The younger people in the management also received powers to make decisions, Tsai said.

“This means that they actually allow them to make some decisions and allow them to be wrong and train them so that they can recover after mistakes,” he added.

Wu and tsi too Oscracked plans to list CainooAlibaba’s logistics hand, noting the reversal of previous obligations.

“Eddie internally wins that the old cuts and built a new one. Jack (MA) and Joe (Tsay) eventually decided to bet on it, and it paid off,” said Dankan Clark, an early advisor Alibaba and BDA chairman, CNBC reports.

The involvement of government regulation and care has also caused investment. Billions of dollars were destroyed from the cost of Chinese technology companies while Venture capital investments in startups plunged.

In a country where public policy and support are key for sectors and companies, Beijing’s obvious antagonism to private business has muted mood in the technology sector. But as China continues to face economic wind, the role of the technological sector in raising the economy again in the spotlight.

And in February this year, Chinese Xi Jinping President held a rare meeting with entrepreneurs Calling them “show their talents” in comments that are considered as support for private business.

This collection was attended by Master of Alibaba, among other main Chinese leaders and founders. The MA attendance was particularly interesting, given that its empire has been under the microscope over the past few years, and was not seen with China’s political elite for some time.

“The XI meeting with Jack Ma also sent out a very clear signal about where Chinese government priorities are currently the development of II and the growth of private enterprises is obviously important for China’s economic growth, and we also believe that Alibaba has the support of the Chinese authorities,” said Chelsey Tam, senior capital analyst.

The meeting helped Alibaba this year. And it also seems to have instilled a new confidence in Alibaba to hire and invest.

“It has given us confidence … To return our profits to Capex (capital costs) and investment, as well as hire people,” said Tsai Alibaba, citing more than $ 50 billion in the II infrastructure over the next three years, which the company announced in February.

Alibaba enters China’s leader, and in 2023, shortly after Chatgpt made a splash, the company launched its first AI model called Tongue qianwen or qwen. A company with outdated Hangzhou elderly has since aggressively launched numerous models that allow such tasks as video, text, and generations from users’ clues.

Alibaba has made its open source models, that is, who can load them and build them. It was a key for his success. Some of the The most popular models about hugs, On QWEN built global AI models.

“Alibaba invariably releases high exposure models with open source since the beginning of 2023,” said CNBC Tiphen Wang, machine training engineer.

Van said alibaba models covering features such as video, images and texts, “provide high performance in different tasks.”

While Alibaba was wound in the AI ​​model game, it was the issue of a Chinese firm’s research work Deepseek this year It made all his eyes focus on what was happening in China. Deepseek claimed that his AI model was prepared for the share of leading players II and at less sucking Nvidia Chips that lead to a global stock sale.

“Deepseek was a call to awaken that China Tech is not just sitting on a single mode on AI, and it indirectly benefits Alibaba, because the appetite for the II is clear in China,” said Jus -centuries.

Cloud computing business alibaba Located accelerated growth in the December quarter From a quarter before.

“I think the main thing is that instead of considering Alibaba as a lost market (and) e-commerce company, it can now be considered as a big cloud (and) company AI, which uses all the new features,” said Clark BDA.

“This is a complete change in the story.”