Alibaba AI Investment Full Record: Heavy Positions in Core Links of AI Industry Chain, Unrealized Gains Exceed 5 Times in 3 Years

In the early morning of July 9, ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) released its prospectus for an IPO on the Shanghai STAR Market. The expected issuance date is July 16. Alibaba has cumulatively invested approximately 76 billion yuan into CXMT, making it the industry investor with the highest shareholding ratio. Based on post-listing valuation estimates, the value corresponding to Alibaba’s equity in CXMT is approximately 130 billion yuan, and the expected total return multiple after listing could reach 17x.

Behind the investment in CXMT is a major adjustment to Alibaba’s strategic investment logic over the past three years: focusing on AI, actively deploying in chips, large models, embodied intelligence, and AI applications; investing early, in small stakes, and in frontier areas, without strongly controlling investees, and pursuing win-win outcomes. Judging from the current situation, this adjustment has already produced substantial returns. According to incomplete statistics, Alibaba’s external AI investments over the past three years totaled approximately 36 billion yuan, and its unrealized gains are currently over 210 billion yuan. From the perspective of the industry and the investee companies, Alibaba’s strategic investments have become an important source of fresh capital for the AI industry.

Chips: Clear-eyed, precise targeting—investing in CXMT and Montage Technology

Alibaba’s two large investments in the chip segment target DRAM memory and server interconnection. Alibaba first took a stake in CXMT in December 2021. After dilution across multiple rounds of financing, that investment corresponded to a shareholding ratio of around 1%. In June 2025—3.5 years later—Alibaba made a further large investment, raising its pre-IPO shareholding ratio to around 5%. Alibaba’s cumulative investment in CXMT is approximately 7.6 billion yuan. Based on post-listing valuation estimates, the expected total post-listing return multiple could reach 17x.

Notably, at the end of 2021, the memory industry was still in a period of falling prices, and the AI-driven storage upcycle had not yet emerged. There were disagreements between the market and industry participants about the pace of development of domestic DRAM. Alibaba’s decision to invest at this time was not a short-term cyclical bet; it reflected forward-looking judgment about the strategic value of domestic memory and the long-term industrial landscape.

Montage Technology is another piece of Alibaba’s chip-industry-chain layout. Montage Technology’s products cover key server-side supporting components such as memory interfaces, PCle/CXL Retimer, and AI high-speed interconnects. In February 2026, Montage Technology achieved an A to H listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Alibaba subscribed for approximately 500 million yuan, making it the third-largest cornerstone investor. This investment further strengthened Alibaba’s industrial synergy across the upstream and downstream of the computing power foundation. As of now, based on secondary market share prices, its unrealized gains are over 3x.

In addition, Alibaba has invested in chip companies such as Aojie Technology, Lightelligence, and Hancb Semiconductor, as well as AI infra companies such as SiliconFlow. Aojie Technology has already listed on A-shares; Lightelligence has already listed on Hong Kong shares; Hancb Semiconductor has submitted for A-share listing guidance; and SiliconFlow has filed an IPO application for Hong Kong shares. It is expected that Alibaba will gain more listed companies in this area.

Large Models: Invest early—full coverage of leading large-model companies

In contrast, Alibaba’s investments in large-model companies span the entire process in the industry from 0 to 1. In November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT. In 2023, domestic large models began to take off. Because the technical route had not yet converged and the application scenarios and commercialization paths were still unclear, there was significant disagreement in the market about their long-term value. Against this backdrop, Alibaba entered immediately and made a full-coverage investment in leading companies such as Zhipu, MiniMax, and Moonshot (Kimi).

Alibaba took a stake in Zhipu in 2023. On January 8, 2026, Zhipu listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under the banner of the “world’s first large-model stock,” and its share price rose steadily. Based on the latest secondary market share price, the return from Alibaba’s investment is about 14 billion yuan, with a return multiple of about 70x. Just one day later, on January 9, 2026, MiniMax also listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Alibaba invested in MiniMax twice in 2024 and 2026, with cumulative investment of 2.9 billion yuan. At the current share price, the return is about 18 billion yuan.

Moonshot has not yet listed. Alibaba’s strategic investment team participated in Moonshot’s entire process from its founding to the present. From 2023 to 2026, Alibaba made 7 investments with a total amount exceeding 8 billion yuan. Based on the latest valuation estimate circulating in the market, the return multiple is over 6x, and the return exceeds 40 billion yuan.

In the direction of multimodal models, Alibaba’s strategic investments have also followed the same playbook of full coverage of the leaders. It has invested in companies such as Aishijie Technology, Keling, Shengshu Technology, and VAST, covering key branches including the foundational model layer for video generation, the application layer, and major areas such as 3D generation.

Since 2024, Alibaba has consecutively led three rounds of investment in Aishijie Technology. Aishijie Technology is a leading product for domestic AI video applications going overseas. In March 2026, it completed a $300 million Series C financing, setting a single-round financing record in the Asian AI video generation track. In July, Alibaba also participated in the independent financing of Keling AI’s AI video star project under Kuaishou.

Shengshu Technology focuses on video foundation models and world models. Its core team comes from Professor Zhu Jun’s lab at Tsinghua University. Recently, it launched a closed-loop world model, exploring the deployment of embodied intelligence in the physical world. Another company, VAST, is a leading player in the 3D generation direction, and Alibaba also invested early.

AI Applications: Broad deployment—betting on the application layer to enrich the ecosystem

Following the industrial chain path of “chips → models → applications,” Alibaba has also made broad deployments in the AI application layer. Compared with the concentrated heavy bets in the first two layers, this layer involves smaller single investments but wider coverage. It follows the early-stage VC playbook, and the value realization window is still ahead.

Founded in Silicon Valley, Genspark is one of the early leading players in the global general-purpose Agent track that first produced commercialized data. Alibaba has cumulatively invested approximately 900 million yuan, holding about 13% of the shares. Its unrealized gains have already exceeded 1.4 billion yuan.

In addition, Alibaba has also made multiple early investments in Dify, a global open-source Agentic workflow development platform; Natural Selection, an AI companionship company; and SeaArt (SeaArt), an overseas AIGC platform.

Embodied Intelligence: Deploy the full stack—from the “body” to the “brain”

Embodied intelligence is an area where Alibaba has added positions intensively over the past two years. Starting in 2024, Alibaba has laid out multiple leading early-stage companies around areas including hardware bodies, dexterous operations, and embodied brains.

Jizhi Dynamics is Alibaba’s earliest investment in the embodied intelligence track. Founded in 2022, the company focuses on the design and manufacturing of humanoid body hardware, as well as the development of embodied brain models and Agentic OS. Alibaba took a stake in 2024, making it the company’s largest external shareholder. According to business registration information, Alibaba’s shareholding ratio is 11.58%. Jizhi Dynamics’ current valuation is nearly $2 billion, and Alibaba’s investment returns are over 6x.

In the same year, Alibaba also invested in Xingdong Jiyuan. Xingdong Jiyuan was founded by Chen Jianyuan, an assistant professor at Tsinghua University’s Institute of Interdisciplinary Information Sciences. Its general-purpose robot body and embodied brain capabilities have already begun to be deployed in the logistics sector. In addition, Alibaba also participated in investments in Unitree Technology, a humanoid and quadruped robot company. Its IPO on the STAR Market has been registered and is now effective; it is expected to become the “first embodied intelligence stock on the A-share market.”

In 2025, Alibaba’s investment pace in embodied intelligence clearly accelerated. Sudo Technology (Sudo) was founded in 2025 and led by the well-known scholar Professor Su Hao. Alibaba made multiple rounds of investment in the early stages of Sudo’s establishment, and it is understood that the company’s valuation has already exceeded 25 billion US dollars.

Another embodied intelligence company, Force Mind, was founded almost at the same time. In its A+ round, it received several hundred million yuan in exclusive investment from Alibaba. According to business registration information, Alibaba is the company’s largest external investor. Force Mind is a representative enterprise in China’s embodied brain direction; industry insiders say its current valuation has exceeded 10 billion yuan.

In September of the same year, Alibaba led an investment in Variables Robot. Its recent cooperation with 58.com enabled it to be the first to deploy product capabilities in home service scenarios. Its latest post-investment valuation has exceeded 200 billion yuan.

Sharpa, an AI robotics company, focuses on dexterous operations. This June, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang demonstrated Sharpa’s tactile dexterous manipulation capability in a speech and announced that it had selected Sharpa’s dexterous hand system as NVIDIA’s global reference design for robotics. Alibaba increased its investment in Sharpa continuously in 2025 and 2026, and it is one of the company’s major shareholders. It is understood that Sharpa’s current valuation has already exceeded 20 billion yuan.

In an even more cutting-edge field—brain-computer interfaces—Alibaba also has a presence. StairMed is a leading company in the invasive brain-computer domain and was the first in China to promote such products into clinical trials. Alibaba led the company’s latest two rounds of financing.

Investment Logic: From “strong control” to “win-win”

In Alibaba’s early years, its investments mainly focused on building an ecosystem around its core consumer business, favoring companies whose business models had been proven and that could form business synergies—many of which involved acquisitions of controlling stakes and deep integration within the ecosystem.

Over the past three years, Alibaba’s strategic investment logic has undergone a major shift. It no longer seeks strong control; it pursues win-win outcomes. The investment focus has clearly shifted toward AI. Besides large-scale targets like CXMT, a substantial weight has been assigned to “investing early, in small stakes, and in frontier areas,” providing crucial R&D funding to AI startup teams. This helps them complete capacity ramp-up during critical periods and smoothly pass the start-up stage and bottleneck stage.

For example, in 2023, the main form of AI products was still chatbots. Application scenarios and commercialization paths were unclear, and there were doubts in the industry about their prospects—far from today’s consensus. At this point, Alibaba brought all the leading star projects into its investment landscape, making it the earliest industry investor to enter. The same is true for Alibaba’s embodied intelligence layout: it entered before the industry exploded, and it has already invested in more than 10 startup companies.

For investee companies, Alibaba does not bind them through equity; instead, it lets synergies happen naturally and pursues win-win outcomes. For example, large-model companies and embodied intelligence companies both have a strong need for computing power. As a result, Alibaba Cloud is a natural customer, and Alibaba Cloud is China’s largest AI cloud provider. Against a backdrop of computing power shortages, Alibaba can provide the most important infrastructure for AI startups. In 2025, Alibaba formulated a three-year AI infrastructure plan totaling over 380 billion yuan; its confidence also stems from such an industrial ecosystem position. According to the latest market information, Alibaba Cloud’s revenue growth rate in the previous quarter is expected to reach 45%.

A source said that in the first half of this year, Moonshot’s spending on Alibaba Cloud has already exceeded $200 million. According to public information, in the first three quarters of 2025, MiniMax purchased approximately $58.4 million worth of computing power, and Alibaba Cloud is its largest cloud service provider. Reporters also learned that the embodied intelligence companies invested by Alibaba mentioned above have annualized spending on Alibaba Cloud of over $100 million. Meanwhile, large models such as Zhipu, Moonshot, and MiniMax also provide model services externally through Alibaba Cloud’s Bailian platform, reaching and expanding more customers.

Value of Big Tech: A windbreaker and supporter for emerging industries

Alibaba’s strategic shift originates from strategic adjustments at the Alibaba Group level. In September 2023, Eddie Wu became CEO of Alibaba Group. As one of Alibaba’s earliest programmers and a member of the founding team, Eddie Wu has a background spanning technology, business, and investment. After becoming CEO, Wu proposed two strategic focuses: “User first, AI-driven.” The former is a return to Alibaba’s operating philosophy, most directly reflected in the fierce competition in its core e-commerce business; the latter runs through all of the Group’s businesses, especially the technology segment anchored by Alibaba Cloud.

In February 2025, Alibaba announced it would invest more than 380 billion yuan to build AI and cloud computing infrastructure. This figure exceeds Alibaba’s cumulative investment in this field over the past 10 years. Moving in parallel with large-scale self-built investments, Alibaba’s strategic investments also made cumulative external equity investments in the AI field of about 36 billion yuan over the three years. Such high-pressure investment intensity reflects Alibaba’s determination to go all in on AI. Behind such resolute investment is a focus on and a willingness to make trade-offs.

In 2025, Alibaba sold YinTai Commercial and Sun Art Retail one after another. In the same period, it also gradually reduced its equity holdings in multiple companies in the secondary market, including Bilibili, YTO Express, Huatai Securities, China International Capital Corporation (CICC), NetEase Cloud Music, and Raytron. The divestment proceeds were ultimately used for AI investment. Adjustments in investment direction have brought improved capital efficiency: with approximately 360 billion yuan of principal, it has earned current unrealized gains of approximately 2100 billion yuan. Moreover, a significant portion of the holdings is still in the Pre-IPO stage or even earlier stages, so the value remains in an upward channel.

A more noteworthy phenomenon is this: Alibaba has shifted its investment logic from “strong control and integration” to “symbiosis and win-win,” and its investment style from “invest early, in small stakes, and in frontier areas,” which creates a strong spillover effect at the industry level. This makes Alibaba an important source of fresh capital for China’s AI industry. CXMT and Montage Technology have become the main forces for domestic chip substitution; Zhipu, Moonshot, and MiniMax are developing well; and many investee embodied intelligence companies and AI application companies have grown into “unicorns.” For Alibaba, CXMT’s IPO is only the first time window among a series of future harvests. For Chinese technology, it is a trend worth watching: “big tech” finding its positioning, building ecosystems, and using financial resources, computing power, and intelligence to become a windbreaker and supporter for an emerging industry.

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