Alibaba Group co-founder Jack Ma has joined a pair of senior executives in picking up company stock to show support for its AI ambitions, the South China Morning Post reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Ma bought more than HK$600 million (S$97 million) worth of shares, the newspaper said.
The report surfaced after senior executives Joe Tsai and Eddie Wu had together acquired at least US$20 million (S$25.4 million) worth of stock in recent days, according to exchange filings. The shares rose about 0.5 per cent in pre-market US trading.
Alibaba representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ma, who helped turn a tiny e-commerce outfit run out of his apartment into one of China’s most powerful tech conglomerates, has in recent years played a more active role at supporting the company.
Alibaba on Aug 23 raised HK$80 billion in Hong Kong’s biggest follow-on share offering, underscoring its willingness to amass and spend vast sums to take the lead in global artificial intelligence.
The fund-raising reflects Alibaba’s eagerness to outspend and outrun Chinese rivals in the chase to define the frontier of AI development.
The company has sold off assets and pledged to spend more than 380 billion yuan (S$71.8 billion) over three years on AI, from chips to data centres to large-language model development.
But that concentrated effort to challenge Anthropic and OpenAI is already eroding margins, while anaemic domestic consumption dogs its mainstay online retail business.
The company amped up its capital spending in the June quarter to nearly US$10 billion and said it is putting the focus on long-term competitiveness. BLOOMBERG
