Alibaba Recognized as Most Admired Chinese Internet Company by Fortune

Alibaba Group Holding has achieved recognition as the world’s most admired Chinese internet and retail company, according to the latest report by the US business magazine Fortune. This notable accomplishment comes as Alibaba introduces a new artificial intelligence (AI) model to compete with DeepSeek, a rising star in China's tech landscape.

The company, based in Hangzhou and also known for owning the South China Morning Post, has made significant strides in the rankings. In Fortune’s 2025 list of the World’s Most Admired Companies, Alibaba secured the third position in the internet service and retail category, following only major American competitors Amazon.com and Alphabet. This marks an impressive leap of five places from its previous eighth position last year.

Despite this recognition, Alibaba did not rank among the top 50 companies on the overall list. The top five positions were dominated by tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, and Berkshire Hathaway.

Alibaba is part of a growing trend among Chinese firms heavily investing in AI technologies. Recently, Alibaba Cloud, the company’s cloud computing and AI division, launched an enhanced version of its AI model known as Qwen 2.5-Max. The company claims that this model has significantly outperformed the previous V3 model unveiled by DeepSeek in December, which has often been compared to advanced systems created by OpenAI.

DeepSeek has gained international attention for its innovative open-source reasoning model, R1, which the start-up asserts has capabilities similar to those of OpenAI’s closed-source GPT models. This positions both Alibaba and DeepSeek as key players in the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence.

Alibaba, AI, Technology