The Alibaba brand 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 international leaderboards has been confirmed as a mission from Chinese language tech large Alibaba, in a improvement that might 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 improvement. Alibaba confirmed to CNBC that the submit was real.
The nameless debut of the mannequin had sparked on-line hypothesis about whether or not the developer was a tech large similar to Tencent or Alibaba or an unbiased developer.
The Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba closed 2.12% greater 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 develop its AI choices amid intense competitors in China, constructing on its flagship Qwen massive language mannequin and chatbot app.
Whereas earlier AI mannequin sequence from Alibaba have included devoted video technology capabilities, none have generated the identical stage of buzz or ranked as extremely as Glad Horse has in only a matter of days.
HappyHorse-1.0 might strengthen Alibaba’s place in video technology, an space the place opponents have confronted setbacks.
OpenAI just lately discontinued its Sora video technology app and platform, citing a strategic shift to concentrate on coding instruments, company shoppers and AGI improvement amid excessive compute prices.
Whereas OpenAI’s exit might cede extra floor to Chinese language opponents, ByteDance was just lately compelled to pause the rollout of its viral Seedance 2.0 following copyright disputes with main Hollywood studios and streaming platforms.
Alibaba Chief Govt Officer Eddie Wu has made AI improvement the overriding precedence for the tech large’s sprawling enterprise, which additionally consists of chip design and information facilities.
Alibaba has beforehand built-in its AI fashions into its different e-commerce, promoting and leisure merchandise, and could possibly be aiming to do the identical with Happyhorse.
