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Kling AI Secures $2.8 Billion Backing from Alibaba and Tencent at $15 Billion Valuation

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Kuaishou’s AI video platform Kling AI has secured commitments for more than $2.8 billion in new funding from a consortium of major Chinese technology companies, including Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu, in one of the largest artificial intelligence financing rounds in China this year.

The investment values Kling AI at $15 billion before the new capital injection and underscores the accelerating competition in AI-generated video, one of the fastest-growing segments of generative artificial intelligence.

Kling AI has emerged as one of China’s leading text-to-video platforms, with revenue growing more than fourfold year-over-year during the latest quarter. The strong commercial performance has reinforced investor confidence that AI-generated multimedia is moving beyond experimentation and becoming a viable enterprise and consumer business.

The participation of Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu is particularly significant. Rather than competing solely through internal development, China’s largest technology companies are also investing strategically in promising AI platforms, strengthening their exposure to the next generation of generative AI while expanding broader ecosystem partnerships.

The fundraising also reflects the continued momentum of China’s AI sector despite geopolitical pressures and technology restrictions. Investor appetite for AI companies remains strong, with capital increasingly flowing toward businesses focused on foundation models, intelligent agents, robotics, and generative content technologies.

For Kuaishou, the transaction transforms Kling AI from a wholly owned business into a more independently financed growth platform. Although Kuaishou will remain the majority shareholder, the new ownership structure could provide greater flexibility for future expansion, product development, and potentially an eventual public listing.

The deal highlights another important trend in the AI market: video generation is rapidly becoming one of the industry’s most competitive frontiers. As AI models improve in realism, editing capability, and production efficiency, companies are racing to build platforms capable of serving creators, advertisers, entertainment companies, and enterprise users.

Kling AI’s funding round demonstrates that investors increasingly view generative video as a strategic growth market alongside large language models and AI infrastructure, positioning it as a key battleground in the global artificial intelligence race.

Alibaba’s Amap Hits Record 360 Million Users on First Day of China’s Extended Holiday

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Alibaba Group’s mapping app Amap reached an all-time record of over 360 million daily active users on the first day of China’s eight-day National Day holiday, the company announced on Wednesday.

The surge highlights Amap’s growing dominance in the travel and lifestyle app ecosystem and marks a significant milestone in its ongoing rivalry with Meituan, another major player in China’s digital services market.

AMAP’S STRATEGIC SHIFT AND AI FEATURES

Traditionally known for navigation, Amap has been expanding into lifestyle and local services, directly challenging Meituan’s Dazhong Dianping platform. It now offers AI-powered rankings of restaurants, hotels and tourist destinations through its new feature called “Street Stars”, which leverages artificial intelligence algorithms to generate destination lists for users.

As part of the launch campaign, Amap rolled out 1 billion yuan ($140.43 million) worth of subsidies, including ride-hailing discounts and in-store coupons, to boost engagement during the peak holiday period.

MARKET REACTION AND HOLIDAY BOOST

The announcement sent Alibaba’s shares up 4% in Hong Kong trading on Thursday after JPMorgan raised its price target on the stock to HK$240 ($30.85) from HK$165, citing stronger-than-expected user activity and positive outlooks in the company’s digital services ecosystem.

The record usage coincided with China’s National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival, which this year were combined into an eight-day “super holiday”, one of the country’s busiest travel periods.

According to state broadcaster CCTV, China’s national railway handled 23.13 million passenger trips on the first day alone — an 8% increase year-on-year and a new single-day record, underscoring the nationwide travel boom.

ALIBABA VS. MEITUAN: A DIGITAL LIFESTYLE BATTLE

Amap’s evolution reflects Alibaba’s broader effort to capture local-lifestyle market share from Meituan by transforming a simple mapping tool into a comprehensive travel and experience platform.
Chinese consumers, who traditionally turned to Meituan’s Dazhong Dianping for restaurant reviews and bookings, are increasingly finding similar services integrated directly within Amap’s app — backed by AI personalization and user subsidies.

As China’s consumer and tourism sectors rebound post-pandemic, the battle for digital lifestyle dominance between Alibaba and Meituan is set to intensify — with Amap’s record user engagement during the National Day holiday offering Alibaba a strong start.

Alibaba Shares Surge on Nvidia Partnership and Global AI Expansion

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Alibaba announced on Wednesday a sweeping set of initiatives, including a partnership with Nvidia, new global data centers, and its largest-ever AI products, underscoring its pivot to make artificial intelligence a central business priority alongside e-commerce.

The news sent Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares up nearly 10% to a four-year high, while its U.S.-listed shares also rose by a similar margin in premarket trading.

“The speed of AI industry development has far exceeded our expectations, and the industry’s demand for AI infrastructure has also far exceeded our expectations,” Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu said at the company’s annual Apsara Conference. He added that spending on AI will be increased, though without specifying figures. Earlier this year, Alibaba pledged 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) for AI infrastructure investments over three years.

As part of its strategy, Alibaba will collaborate with Nvidia to enhance physical AI capabilities including data synthesis, model training, environmental simulation, and validation testing.

The company also unveiled an ambitious global data center expansion plan, announcing facilities in Brazil, France, and the Netherlands, with more to follow in Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Dubai within the next year. This will add to Alibaba’s current network of 91 data centers across 29 regions. The company did not specify whether Nvidia chips would power these new facilities.

At the same event, Alibaba launched its most advanced AI language model to date, Qwen3-Max, boasting over 1 trillion parameters. According to CTO Zhou Jingren, the model demonstrates strong performance in code generation and autonomous agent capabilities, allowing the AI to act more independently toward user-defined goals compared to traditional chatbots like ChatGPT.

Benchmark tests such as Tau2-Bench reportedly show Qwen3-Max outperforming competitors including Anthropic’s Claude and DeepSeek-V3.1 in specific categories.

Additional AI products showcased included Qwen3-Omni, a multimodal system designed for immersive applications in virtual and augmented reality, with potential use cases in smart glasses and intelligent vehicle cockpits.

The announcements come shortly after Nvidia revealed a $100 billion investment deal with OpenAI, highlighting the intensifying race in AI infrastructure.

Alibaba’s cloud division, which reported 26% revenue growth last quarter, is emerging as a key growth driver as the company monetizes its AI services more aggressively.