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According to LatePost, the general robotics company Sharpa has completed over 4.5 billion yuan in financing, with investors including Alibaba, Meituan, Tencent, JD.com, and other industrial capital, as well as Sequoia China, Qiming Venture Partners, and Meituan Longzhu. The post-investment valuation is 22 billion yuan. This is the first time Sharpa has publicly disclosed its financing since its establishment.Sharpa was founded at the end of 2024 by He Sai Technology CEO Li Yifan, CTO Xiang Shaoqing, and Chief Scientist Sun Kai, focusing on developing general-purpose robots and components that specialize in dexterous operations. Co-founder Li Yifan stated that Sharpa's logic is to first "navigate" several real-world scenarios, accumulating generalized capabilities and real data on the "track," gradually entering households starting in 2028; real scenarios must meet three conditions: the environment is not specially modified for robots, operations are fully autonomous by robots, and complex tasks involving multiple steps are completed.

According to Jinshi, Alibaba Cloud announced that the billing unit price for the Qwen3.8-Flash model mode on the Bailian large model service platform will be adjusted downwards starting from 12:00:00 Beijing time on August 27, 2026. Qwen3.8-Flash is the latest multimodal large model launched by Qianwen, natively supporting a million-level context window, capable of processing ultra-long documents, code repositories, and complex dialogues in one go. It performs outstandingly in scenarios such as programming assistance, intelligent agent collaboration, and image-text understanding, and is compatible with OpenAI and Anthropic interface protocols, making it suitable for building high-concurrency applications and intelligent workflows.The specifics are as follows: the input price before adjustment was 1 yuan, and after adjustment it will be 0.8 yuan; the output price before adjustment was 3 yuan, and after adjustment it will be 2.7 yuan.

Alibaba Group announced the completion of a new share placement of HKD 80 billion, issuing 710 million new ordinary shares to non-U.S. persons outside the United States, with a placement price of HKD 112.7 per share. Alibaba plans to use the net proceeds from the placement entirely to strengthen its global AI layout.Approximately 60%, or HKD 47.871 billion, will be used to expand global computing infrastructure to meet the growing customer demand; the remaining approximately 40%, or HKD 31.914 billion, will be used to accelerate the construction of large-scale AI data centers.The related funds will also be used to upgrade traditional cloud infrastructure such as storage, databases, and high-performance networks, supporting Alibaba's full transition to an Agentic Cloud architecture. The shares offered in this placement are not registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 and are being offered and sold outside the United States to certain non-U.S. persons in reliance on Regulation S.

The Alibaba Qwen team will release Qwen 3.8-Flash-Next on Wednesday, which is a mixture of experts (MoE) model with a total of 125 billion parameters, but only 6 billion parameters are activated for each token. The team positions it as a preview version of the next-generation Qwen 4 architecture, rather than the final flagship model.The model is described as multimodal and is built on the upcoming Qwen 4 architecture. The team stated that the early release of this version is to prepare developers for the subsequent complete Qwen series. The model weights will be hosted on the Hugging Face and ModelScope platforms.As of now, Qwen has not disclosed the benchmark results for this model, nor has it released comparative data with its own Qwen 3 series or overseas competitors. The specific figures of 125 billion and 6 billion parameters have not been officially confirmed. As an open-weight model, developers can download, fine-tune, and run it for free without sending data to a closed API, which helps reduce the cost of hosting the model.

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Gharibabadi stated that no warships are allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

According to sources, as Alibaba initiated a placement financing, Alibaba founder Jack Ma has been increasing his holdings in Alibaba's Hong Kong stocks for several consecutive days, with a total exceeding 600 million Hong Kong dollars.The related increase in holdings is said to express a strong optimism about Alibaba's AI prospects.

On August 25, according to Hong Kong Stock Exchange documents, Alibaba Group Chairman Cai Chongxin purchased another 720,000 shares of Alibaba on Tuesday, costing 82 million Hong Kong dollars, following his initial purchase of 720,000 shares.After Alibaba announced a new share placement plan of 80 billion Hong Kong dollars, Group Chairman Cai Chongxin and CEO Wu Yongming increased their holdings by a total of approximately 120 million Hong Kong dollars in Alibaba shares. Among them, CEO Wu Yongming bought 350,000 shares of Alibaba's Hong Kong stock at an average price of about 111.6 Hong Kong dollars, costing approximately 40 million Hong Kong dollars. Together, the two increased their holdings by 1.07 million shares, totaling about 120 million Hong Kong dollars.The proceeds from Alibaba's 80 billion Hong Kong dollar new share placement will be fully invested in full-stack AI capabilities and AI infrastructure construction. The placement received active subscriptions from long-term investors such as global sovereign wealth funds, ultimately achieving nearly 3 times oversubscription.

According to Business Insider, Thomson Reuters launched its first self-developed AI model, Thomson-1, on Monday. This model is based on Snowdon and constructed through "re-alignment" of Alibaba's open-source Qwen model. Open-source means anyone can download and modify the model for free. Thomson-1 will take over some tasks previously handled by Anthropic's Claude, but it is not intended to completely replace collaboration with Anthropic and other labs, initially focusing on the company's areas of expertise, starting with document review.This move aims to address the high AI costs brought by models like Claude and OpenAI Codex, and reflects the use of cheaper Chinese open-source AI. CTO Joel Hron stated that the main reason is to better leverage Thomson Reuters' own expertise and control costs. The company expanded its collaboration with Anthropic in May this year for the AI legal assistant CoCounsel, which still primarily relies on Claude. Hron said, "Our main goal is to gradually make Thomson the model that drives more and more capabilities for CoCounsel."Thomson Reuters, in collaboration with a team from Imperial College London, spent months transforming Qwen to build Snowdon and ensured it is "ethically and politically bias-processed and safe to use." Hron pointed out that having a proprietary model allows for development based on its own intellectual property rather than continuously paying external AI companies, comparing it to renting versus buying a house: renting provides shelter but does not accumulate long-term equity.

Alibaba's video large model Wan 3 is officially launched, and Nvidia is negotiating an investment in Perplexity, which is valued at over $30 billion.Xiaomi releases the Xuan Ring O3 processor using 3 nm technology, and smart ring manufacturer Oura plans to raise up to $3 billion in an IPO.

According to the latest documents from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, after Alibaba announced a new share placement plan of HKD 80 billion, the group's chairman Cai Chongxin and CEO Wu Yongming each increased their holdings of Alibaba shares by a total of approximately HKD 120 million.Cai Chongxin purchased 720,000 shares of Alibaba's Hong Kong stock at an average price of approximately HKD 112, costing about HKD 80 million; Wu Yongming bought 350,000 shares of Alibaba's Hong Kong stock at an average price of approximately HKD 111.6, costing about HKD 40 million. The two together increased their holdings by 1.07 million shares, with a total amount of approximately HKD 120 million.

On August 24, according to the Shanghai Securities Journal, Alibaba announced the completion of the pricing for a new share placement of HKD 80 billion (approximately USD 10.2 billion), with 100% of the net proceeds from the placement to be used for investing in full-stack AI capabilities and strengthening AI infrastructure construction.According to sources close to the transaction, this placement was nearly 3 times oversubscribed, exceeding HKD 200 billion. Sovereign and long-term funds ultimately accounted for over 40% of the subscription, with high order quality. Major sovereign funds from regions such as the Middle East, Europe, and Asia actively participated in this subscription.

On August 24, according to Gate market data, Hong Kong stock Alibaba fell more than 10%, with its stock price hitting a new low in nearly a month.Previously, it was reported that Alibaba announced plans to place new shares in Hong Kong. The company stated that the total amount of this placement is HKD 80 billion (USD 10.2 billion). This transaction will become the largest primary follow-on offering in the history of Hong Kong-listed companies and the largest Regulation S stock issuance on record (for securities issued and sold outside the United States), and it is also the third largest primary follow-on stock issuance globally this year, following Alphabet and Intel.

According to Nikkei Asia, Alibaba Group announced that it will raise HKD 80 billion (approximately USD 10.2 billion) through a new share placement to investors outside the United States, with all proceeds being invested in the company's full-stack AI capability development.Alibaba is increasing its investment in the field of artificial intelligence, as the competition between China and the United States in cutting-edge models and the underlying infrastructure continues to heat up. This financing aims to support its comprehensive layout of AI-related technologies and capabilities.

Alibaba stated that Alibaba Cloud is undergoing a comprehensive upgrade, transitioning to intelligent cloud.In the coming quarters, the growth rate of revenue from artificial intelligence and cloud business will further accelerate.

Alibaba announced that its latest generation AI processor, Zhenwu M890, has been widely commercialized among over 650 external customers. The chip, through Alibaba Cloud services, has been applied in more than 20 industries including autonomous driving, the internet, and financial services, validating its capability to support end-to-end AI workloads.

According to Caixin, Alibaba announced its first-quarter results for the fiscal year 2027. The revenue for the quarter was 268.95 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9%, slightly higher than the market estimate of 268.52 billion yuan.The adjusted net profit for the same period was 20.72 billion yuan, lower than the estimated 25.58 billion yuan; the adjusted earnings per ADS were 8.52 yuan, lower than the estimated 11.28 yuan.

Alibaba (09988.HK) announced that the external revenue growth of Alibaba Cloud accelerated to 45%, and revenue from artificial intelligence-related products achieved triple-digit growth.

According to Bloomberg, Alibaba has reached an agreement to sell its gaming business Lingxi Interactive Entertainment to the Asian private equity firm Trustar Capital, with the deal valued at least $1.5 billion. Lingxi Interactive Entertainment CEO Zhou Bingshu stated in an internal memo that this move aims to allow Alibaba to better focus on strategic priorities.Alibaba is accelerating its strategic transformation in AI and cloud computing, aiming for AI revenue to reach $100 billion within five years. This month, Alibaba released its largest AI model ever, claiming performance comparable to Anthropic. This sale is the latest initiative by Alibaba to divest non-core assets and focus on its AI strategy.

According to reports from Blue Whale Technology, Alibaba and CITIC have officially reached a transaction agreement, in which Alibaba will transfer its shares in Lingxi Interactive Entertainment, and Xincheng Capital will become the new shareholder. Xincheng Capital supports the existing team to operate stably under the leadership of the management team, which will remain stable and continue to develop alongside the company.Lingxi Interactive Entertainment is a gaming brand under Alibaba, and its gaming business can be traced back to the integration of the 9Game channel business after the acquisition of UC in 2014. In 2017, Alibaba fully acquired Guangzhou Jianyue for approximately 1 billion yuan, which later became the predecessor of Lingxi Interactive Entertainment. The self-developed game "Three Kingdoms Strategy Edition" became a top hit in the SLG category in 2019. Since 2023, Lingxi has undergone multiple adjustments, and in March 2024, founder Zhan Zhonghui stepped down as CEO, with producer Zhou Bingshu of "Three Kingdoms Strategy Edition" taking over.The new shareholder, Xincheng Capital, is a private equity investment business under CITIC Capital, which has completed over 100 investments since 2002, managing a total of 10.5 billion USD in funds. Lingxi Interactive Entertainment CEO Zhou Bingshu expressed gratitude in an internal letter, stating that Alibaba "nurtured and grew Lingxi," and that the new shareholder Xincheng Capital will "inject new momentum" into the company's development. The specific amount of the transaction has not yet been disclosed.

According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), H&H International Investment, managed by Duan Yongping, had a total market value of approximately $19.1 billion at the end of the second quarter, a decrease from about $20 billion at the end of the first quarter.H&H continued to increase its holdings in Pinduoduo, Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares, and Disney, while establishing a new position in Alibaba, and significantly reducing its holdings in Nvidia, Google, and Microsoft, completely exiting from TSMC and CrowdStrike.