Alibaba Group made the latest move in its rapid AI push Thursday, announcing a new artificial intelligence model it said it optimized to run on smartphones and laptops. U.S.-listed Alibaba stock edged higher in morning trading.
The Chinese tech giant said in a blog post Thursday that its "Qwen2.5-Omni-7B" AI model can provide rapid responses from a range of inputs, including text, images, audio and video. The model is designed to be deployed on so-called edge devices, such as smartphones and laptops.
In February, Alibaba confirmed that its AI models were picked by Apple to power new iPhone features in China. Alibaba also said earlier this week that its models would power AI tools in upcoming vehicles in China from BMW.
The new model is open-sourced on the developer websites Hugging Face and GitHub, Alibaba said. That's similar to the attention-grabbing AI models of Chinese startup DeepSeek. DeepSeek's lower-cost but powerful AI models captured attention both in China and the U.S. when they launched in late January.
Since then, Chinese tech companies have raced to offer faster and lower-cost AI services, often offered to developers as open-source software. The AI battle in China includes Baidu and WeChat-parent company Tencent.
Alibaba has been moving quickly. Last week it announced a new version of its AI assistant, the first powered by its custom large language models. The e-commerce and cloud-computing tech behemoth also said last month that it will spend more than $50 billion over the next three years on the tech infrastructure required for AI.
However, the company expects it can spend less than U.S. tech counterparts. Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai said at an industry conference earlier this week that he was "astounded" by the spending on AI data centers by U.S. tech companies and views the expenditures as not "entirely necessary."
Alibaba Stock Rally Pulls Back
Some analysts think the big spending will give U.S. tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft an advantage long-term when it comes to winning AI business. But, in the meantime, Alibaba stock is off to a hot start this year while U.S. tech giants have slumped.
Entering Thursday trading, U.S.-listed Alibaba stock had rallied 56% year-to-date. A positive reaction to its fourth quarter earnings report and excitement about the deal to work with Apple have helped fuel Alibaba's rally, which comes after the stock faced a multiyear slide from late 2020 highs.
However, Alibaba shares have pulled back in recent days as investors react to a trade war between the U.S. and China. Alibaba stock is down about 10% from a recent high of 148.43 on March 18.
Shares of the Chinese tech giant fell below their 21-day moving average on March 20, the first time BABA stock broke the short-term trendline since the middle of January.
On the stock market today, U.S.-listed Alibaba stock was up more 3.8% in Thursday afternoon trading.
Alibaba stock has an IBD Composite Rating of 92 out of a best-possible 99, according to IBD Stock Checkup. The score combines five separate proprietary ratings into one rating. The best growth stocks have a Composite Rating of 90 or better.
However, investors should take note that Alibaba stock has a 21-day ATR of 4.4%. The average true range is a metric available on IBD's MarketSurge charting tool. It gauges the characteristic breadth of a stock's behavior.
Stocks that tend to make large jumps or dives in daily action have a high ATR. Stocks that tend to make more gradual moves have lower ATRs. In a volatile market, IBD suggests stocks with ATRs of 3 or below.
