Alibaba Stock Is Jumping. The Chinese Tech Giant Is Flexing Its AI Muscles.

Alibaba stock has climbed more than 60% so far in 2025. (Dreamstime)

Alibaba stock is gaining momentum as a major artificial-intelligence player.

The shares jumped early Monday, building on strong recent gains, after the Chinese tech giant unveiled a new AI model. The technology conglomerate launched Qwen-3-Max-Preview late last week, which the company says features more than 1 trillion parameters–or variables used during the model’s training to help it make better decisions and predictions.

OpenAI has not disclosed the parameter count for its latest GPT-4.5 model, though the South China Morning Post reported it to be between 5 trillion and 7 trillion.

Still, Alibaba is showing it intends to catch up and play a key role in the AI boom. And investors are buying into the excitement. The American depositary receipts rose 3.5% in early trading after jumping 3.6% Friday. The ADRs have risen 24% since the beginning of July and are up 65% in 2025.

Separately, Alibaba’s cloud division led a $100 million funding round for Chinese humanoid company X Square Robot, the startup announced Monday. It could be challenging Tesla when it comes to humanoid robots—Elon Musk has said the electric-vehicle maker plans to start selling them in 2026.

Alibaba announced plans earlier this year to spend $53 billion on AI infrastructure over the next three years. As those investments accelerate, so could the excitement around the stock.

Write to Callum Keown at callum.keown@dowjones.com