Alibaba Group was established in 1999 by 18 people led by Jack Ma, a former English teacher from Hangzhou, China. From the outset, the company’s founders shared a belief that the Internet would level the playing field by enabling small enterprises to leverage innovation and technology to grow and compete more effectively in the domestic and global economies. 

Now, Alibaba Group is a global technology company focused on e-commerce and cloud computing. We enable merchants, brands and retailers to market, sell and engage with consumers by providing digital and logistics infrastructure, efficiency tools and vast marketing reach. We empower enterprises with our leading cloud infrastructure, services and work collaboration capabilities to facilitate their digital transformation and grow their businesses.
January
Alibaba released the visual-language open model, Qwen2.5-VL. The model demonstrates remarkable multimodal capabilities and serves as a visual agent to facilitate the execution of simple tasks on computers and mobile devices by directing the use of various tools.
January
Alibaba unveiled its proprietary flagship large language model(LLM) Qwen2.5-Max. As a cutting-edge Mixture of Experts (MoE) model, Qwen2.5-Max demonstrates exceptional strengths in knowledge, coding, general capabilities, and human alignment.
February
Alibaba announced plans to invest at least RMB380 billion over the next three years to advance its cloud computing and AI infrastructure. This investment will exceed Alibaba’s total AI and cloud spending over the past decade.
March
Alibaba released a new version of the Quark application, a comprehensive AI assistant powered by Alibaba’s Qwen-based advanced reasoning model. Quark is the first within Alibaba’s general user-facing businesses to fully leverage its proprietary foundation models, and is designed to fulfill the work and life needs of more than 200 million users in China.
April
Alibaba launched Qwen3, the latest generation of its open-source large language model (LLM) family. Qwen3 series feature six dense models and two Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) models, setting a new benchmark for AI innovation.
April
Alibaba launched Taobao Instant Commerce, further strengthening the Taobao app’s leadership by deepening consumer engagement through high-frequency, on-demand services.
June
Alibaba integrated its on-demand delivery platform Ele.me and online travel platform Fliggy into its core e-commerce business, marking a strategic evolution from an e-commerce platform to a comprehensive consumption platform.
July
Alibaba announced a RMB50 billion (approximately US$7 billion) investment to support both consumers and merchants in its quick commerce business, reaffirming its confidence and commitment to China’s consumption market.
September
Alibaba completed an offering of approximately US$3.2 billion in aggregate principal amount of Zero Coupon Convertible Senior Notes and intends to use the net proceeds for general corporate purposes, with a strategic focus on enhancing its cloud infrastructure capabilities and expanding its international commerce business operations.
September
At Apsara Conference 2025, Alibaba Cloud unveiled its latest full-stack AI innovations, spanning next-generation large language models from the Qwen3 family, the Wan 2.5 visual-generation models, enhanced platforms for agent development and deployment, and major upgrades to its AI infrastructure - further reinforcing the company’s global leadership at the forefront of the new AI era.
October
Amap’s daily active users (DAU) surpassed 360 million on October 1, setting a record high for the platform. Meanwhile, its new feature “Amap Street Stars”, launched on September 10, attracted over 400 million users in less than a month, further strengthening Amap’s position as a leading gateway for future lifestyle services.