The Alibaba emblem is pictured throughout a tour on the Alibaba workplace in Beijing on April 1, 2026.
Wang Zhao | Afp | Getty Photographs
A mysterious AI video mannequin that has ascended world leaderboards has been confirmed as a mission from Chinese language tech big Alibaba, in a growth that would increase the corporate’s synthetic intelligence ambitions.
HappyHorse-1.0, which appeared on the benchmarking platform Synthetic Evaluation round April 7, with out figuring out its affiliations, climbed to the highest of blind-test rankings for each text-to-video and image-to-video technology.
The builders revealed in a newly created X account Friday that HappyHorse was a part of Alibaba’s ATH AI Innovation Unit and that the mission was nonetheless below growth. Alibaba confirmed to CNBC that the publish was real.
The nameless debut of the mannequin had sparked on-line hypothesis about whether or not the developer was a tech big similar to Tencent or Alibaba or an impartial developer.
The Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba closed 2.12% increased Friday after information of its involvement. Its inventory rose 6.75% on Wednesday, lifted by a broader rally in know-how shares after U.S.-Iran tensions eased, alongside hypothesis that Alibaba was behind the mysterious mannequin.
Alibaba has raced to broaden its AI choices amid intense competitors in China, constructing on its flagship Qwen giant language mannequin and chatbot app.
Whereas earlier AI mannequin collection from Alibaba have included devoted video technology capabilities, none have generated the identical stage of buzz or ranked as extremely as Joyful Horse has in only a matter of days.
HappyHorse-1.0 may strengthen Alibaba’s place in video technology, an space the place opponents have confronted setbacks.
OpenAI lately discontinued its Sora video technology app and platform, citing a strategic shift to deal with coding instruments, company purchasers and AGI growth amid excessive compute prices.
Whereas OpenAI’s exit may cede extra floor to Chinese language opponents, ByteDance was lately pressured to pause the rollout of its viral Seedance 2.0 following copyright disputes with main Hollywood studios and streaming platforms.
Alibaba Chief Government Officer Eddie Wu has made AI growth the overriding precedence for the tech big’s sprawling enterprise, which additionally contains chip design and knowledge facilities.
Alibaba has beforehand built-in its AI fashions into its different e-commerce, promoting and leisure merchandise, and might be aiming to do the identical with Happyhorse.
