Alibaba stock is flying higher, two days after Cathie Wood's first purchase since 2021

By Steve Goldstein

Alibaba CEO plans to increase capital spending on AI and cloud beyond previous target

Alibaba shares surged on Wednesday.

Tech investor Cathie Wood this week bought Alibaba stock for the first time in four years, and it's already turning out to be a good investment.

On Monday, Wood bought $8.2 million worth of Alibaba for the Ark Fintech Innovation ETF and another $8.1 million worth in the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF fund, the first time either of those ETFs have held the Chinese stock since 2021.

Now, the stock is flying higher. Alibaba (BABA) on Wednesday surged 8.2%, following a 9% rally for its Hong Kong-listed shares (HK:9988) after its annual flagship technology conference.

Alibaba's U.S.-listed shares have gained 92% this year.

Alibaba released Qwen3-Max, its largest large language model with over 1 trillion parameters - which the company said can outperform Anthropic's Claude and DeepSeek in certain tests - and also said it will collaborate with Nvidia (NVDA) to accelerate the development of humanoid robots in so-called physical AI.

Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu said the company would increase spending beyond a previously articulated $53 billion target for cloud computing and AI infrastructure, and will also open up its first data centers in Brazil, France and Netherlands, according to wire service reports.

Wood's funds have thrived this year. The flagship innovation fund ARKK, which doesn't hold Alibaba, has gained 47% in 2025, while the next generation ARKW and fintech ARKF funds are up over 50%.

-Steve Goldstein

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09-24-25 1830ET