Alibaba Group Holding has solidified its position as a leader in the industry, climbing five spots from eighth place last year to take the top spot among China’s most respected internet companies.
Alibaba Group Holding has been named the world’s most admired Chinese internet and retail company, according to Fortune’s latest rankings.
The e-commerce giant trails only Amazon and Alphabet in the internet service and retailing category.
Alibaba is a Chinese multinational conglomerate specializing in e-commerce, retail, internet, and technology.
Founded in 1999 by Jack Ma, the company has grown exponentially to become one of the world's largest retailers.
Alibaba's platforms, including AliExpress, Taobao, and Tmall, offer a vast array of products to over 700 million active users worldwide.
In 2014, Alibaba raised $25 billion in its initial public offering (IPO), making it one of the largest IPOs in history.
The Hangzhou-based company climbed five spots from eighth place last year, solidifying its position as a leader in the industry. Alibaba is among a growing list of Chinese companies heavily investing in AI models, with its cloud computing and AI arm, Alibaba Cloud, at the forefront of this innovation.

Alibaba Cloud recently released an upgraded version of its Qwen model, the Qwen 2.5-Max, which it claims has ‘comprehensively outperformed‘ the V3 model launched by Chinese start-up DeepSeek in December. The Qwen 2.5-Max is a significant development in Alibaba’s AI push, as the company seeks to compete with industry leaders.
Alibaba Cloud is a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services offered by Alibaba Group.
Launched in 2009, it provides a range of services including elastic computing, relational databases, data warehousing, big data analytics, and more.
With over 100 zones across the globe, 'it caters to diverse business needs'.
Its services are used by companies such as Toyota, 'we use Alibaba Cloud for cloud infrastructure, disaster recovery, and data processing' is not present in the text. However, we can say that its services are used by companies such as Volkswagen and HSBC for cloud infrastructure, disaster recovery, and data processing.
Alibaba Cloud has received numerous awards, including 'Best Cloud Service Provider' at the 2020 World Retail Congress.
DeepSeek has gained worldwide attention for its new open-source reasoning model, R1, which achieves capabilities comparable to OpenAI‘s closed-source GPT models at a fraction of the usual cost. This has put pressure on companies like Alibaba to innovate and stay ahead in the AI race.
Alibaba’s Qwen 2.5-Max outperforms DeepSeek’s V3 model, according to Alibaba Cloud. Photo: AP Photo