Alibaba Stock Jumps on AI Spend Plans, Reported $1B Stake by GameStop CEO
KEY TAKEAWAYS
U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba Group (
BABA
) are rising around 4% in premarket trading Friday after GameStop (
GME
) CEO Ryan Cohen reportedly raised his stake in the Chinese tech giant and as investors cheered the company’s "aggressive" plans to boost AI spending.
Alibaba reported quarterly results Thursday that
beat estimates
as its
artificial intelligence
-driven strategies
reaccelerated growth
in its core businesses. Its AI-related product revenue also achieved triple-digit growth for the sixth consecutive quarter.
Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu said in the earnings call Thursday, a transcript of which was made available by AlphaSense, that the Chinese tech giant plans to "aggressively invest in AI infrastructure,”
"Our planned investment in cloud and AI infrastructure over the next three years is set to exceed what we have spent over the past decade,” he said.
GameStop's Cohen Reportedly Has Around $1B Alibaba Stake
Also giving the shares a lift is a Thursday report from
The Wall Street Journal
—citing people familiar with the matter—that Gamestop CEO Cohen, which the newspaper says is known as “the meme-stock king,” has increased his personal stake in Alibaba to around 7 million shares worth about $1 billion. Cohen, cofounder of Chewy (
CHWY
), became CEO of
meme-stock
video-game retailer GameStop in 2023.
Investopedia
has not independently confirmed the report. GameStop didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Alibaba shares soared to a
three-year high
after the results Thursday and are up 85% in the past 12 months through Thursday.