Shares in Chinese e-commerce retailer and tech group Alibaba (BABA) rose today as it quashed reports that it was lining up plans to invest in AI platform DeepSeek.
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BABA stock was up over 6% in early trading as a report in Chinese news outlet The Paper said that Yan Qiao, a vice president at Alibaba, had written on her personal WeChat feed that “as a fellow Chinese and Hangzhou company, we applaud DeepSeek, but news circulating that Alibaba will invest in DeepSeek is fake news.”
Is BABA Set to Invest?
It is understood that previous reports, presumably in the Chinese press, had indicated Alibaba planned to invest $1 billion into DeepSeek, the technology which has put the frighteners on stocks such as Nvidia (NVDA) because it can carry out the same functions as its U.S. rivals but at much lower cost. An investment in DeepSeek would come at a pivotal time for the AI sector as corporates in a raft of sectors look to up their spending on the ever-developing technology.
Only this week, Alibaba itself was bragging about its newest AI model – Qwen 2.5-Max – claiming that it outperforms DeepSeek and the U.S. platforms including Microsoft (MFST) -backed OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Meta Platforms’ (META) Llama-3.1-405B.
Alibaba Tech in Focus
Despite threats this week that President Trump’s tariffs tirade would impact Alibaba’s shipments to the U.S., in particular previously protected smaller packages, the excitement over the Chinese group’s tech offerings appears to be holding sway with investors. In the year-to-date the BABA stock has soared 26% and in the last 12 months it is up 50%.
Is BABA a Good Stock to Buy?
On TipRanks, BABA has a Strong Buy consensus based on 11 Buy and 1 Hold rating. Its highest target price is $144. BABA stock’s consensus price target is $121.33 implying an 13.89% upside.
