Alibaba (BABA) Receives Major Upgrade as AI-Driven Cloud Growth Surges

We recently published a list of 10 AI Stocks Taking Wall Street by Storm. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) stands against other AI stocks taking Wall Street by storm.

The race to gain a competitive edge in the generative artificial intelligence industry fiercely continues, and Anthropic is the latest one making a move. On Monday, the artificial intelligence startup announced the launch of its advanced AI model, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, stating that it is its “most intelligent” version yet. This model can produce faster responses or display its step-by-step reasoning process, as reported by Reuters.

READ ALSO: 10 Buzzing AI Stocks Dominating Headlines and 10 AI Stocks Surging on News and Analyst Calls

Anthropic’s hybrid model combines multiple reasoning approaches to solve complex problems more effectively. It was launched amid fierce competition in the world of AI. According to the company, the Claude 3.7 Sonnet model is its most advanced version and will be available on all Claude plans, including Free, Pro, Team, and Enterprise. However, it noted that the “extended thinking mode” feature is only available on paid plans.

“This model has all the capabilities wrapped together — we want one coherent AI that can help with everything. There’s an advantage in simplicity for our customers.”

-Anthropic co-founder and science chief Jared Kaplan told CNBC in an interview.

Kaplan further stated that the “hybrid” model, going live immediately, operates like a human brain. While some questions require quick responses, many others require critical thinking, which is why the company is looking to integrate both. Elaborating on the extended thinking mode, the company said that it is a model that “self-reflects before answering,” thereby improving its performance in math, physics, instruction-following, coding, and many other tasks. Notably, the company said that this model has been specifically designed to focus on “real-world” tasks instead of math and computer science problems. This is so that it can reflect how businesses use large-language models.

According to analysts, Anthropic’s move can grant it an edge against OpenAI and other tech companies investing in AI technologies.

For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. The hedge fund data is as of Q4 2024.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points  (see more details here).

Alibaba (BABA) Receives Major Upgrade as AI-Driven Cloud Growth Surges

An e-commerce platform displaying a wide range of products to customers online.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 107

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) is an internet giant that offers e-commerce services in China and internationally. One of the biggest analyst calls on Monday, February 24, was for Alibaba Group Holding Limited. Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to “Overweight” from equal weight with a price target of $180, up from $100.

The firm said that the Chinese e-commerce company is now its preferred pick. It also admitted that it had underestimated the surge in the company’s AI-driven cloud demand and the strength of its core Taobao and Tmall Group business. The firm further forecast Alibaba (NYSE:BABA)’s cloud revenue to double in three years.

“As the market shifts focus from weak consumption to technological breakthrough in China, we believe China Internet offers superior exposure to AI enablers / adopters.”

Overall, BABA ranks 8th on our list of AI stocks taking Wall Street by storm. While we acknowledge the potential of BABA as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than BABA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and Complete List of 59 AI Companies Under $2 Billion in Market Cap

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.