Jack Ma’s Alibaba Races Past Rivals With 10M AI Downloads After Surviving Beijing’s Crackdown
Beijing clipped its wings — but AlibabaBABA is learning to fly differently. The e-commerce giant’s Qwen AI app scored over 10M downloads within a week of its November relaunch, signaling a serious bid to challenge OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It’s a sharp reversal for a company that survived a $400B valuation wipeout and some of the harshest regulatory hits in China.
- CEO Eddie Wu is pushing an “AI-first” overhaul, with Qwen soon tying together Taobao shopping, maps, food delivery, travel, and office tools into a full AI agent.
- Alibaba’s open-source models — built since 2016 and accelerated during COVID — are gaining traction, while Ant Group’s LingGuang assistant has already hit 1M downloads in four days.
Strategic pivot delivers: China Everbright Securities’ Kenny Ng said, “Whether or not they can leverage the Qwen app to drive their to-consumer business will be an important factor influencing the company’s future valuation,” calling it “a crucial step for benchmarking it against the valuation of OpenAI.” With results due Nov. 26, investors will watch whether Eddie Wu’s “user first” and “AI-driven” mandate can keep momentum in the US-China AI race.