Alibaba Stock Rises on AI Advancements: Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B Model Fuels Investor Optimism
Alibaba Group (BABA) stock experienced a surge on Monday, driven by continued investor enthusiasm surrounding its artificial intelligence initiatives. The unveiling of the Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B foundation model, a cost-effective and high-performing AI solution, has significantly contributed to this positive sentiment.
Alibaba's AI Breakthrough: Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B
Alibaba is accelerating its AI development with the introduction of Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B. This model boasts impressive performance while being significantly smaller and more economical than its predecessors. According to SCMP, the new model is approximately 13 times smaller than Alibaba’s previous largest model, delivers up to 10 times faster performance, and reduces training costs by an impressive 90%.
Developers have credited innovations such as Gated DeltaNet for enabling the model to match DeepSeek-V3.1’s performance with only 3 billion active parameters. Furthermore, its compact size allows it to run on a single Nvidia NVDA H200 GPU, contributing to its popularity on Hugging Face, where it garnered nearly 20,000 downloads on its first day.
Stock Performance and AI's Impact
Alibaba’s progress in AI has coincided with a significant rally in its stock price. The stock has gained 83% year-to-date, substantially outperforming the 12% return of the NYSE Composite Index. This demonstrates the market's confidence in Alibaba's AI strategy and its potential for future growth.
Expanding AI Reach: Amap Street Stars
The company is also extending its AI capabilities into consumer services. Alibaba recently launched Amap Street Stars, an AI-powered alternative to Alphabet’s GOOGL GOOG Google Maps. This platform quickly gained traction, attracting over 40 million users on its first day and now indexing 1.6 million restaurants, hotels, and attractions, as reported by SCMP.
JPMorgan analysts view this initiative as a crucial step towards Alibaba’s ambition of creating a "super-app" ecosystem. They noted that Amap is increasingly positioning itself as Alibaba's primary gateway to offline local services, mirroring Taobao's role as the online traffic entrance.
Analysts further suggest that this service could pose a considerable threat to Meituan’s MPNGY cash cow, particularly its review platform, Dianping, which is a key driver of Meituan's instant commerce revenue.
Price Action
As of the last check on Monday premarket, BABA stock was trading higher by 2.06% at $158.26.
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