By George Glover
Online retailer Alibaba was leading a Chinese tech rally on Wednesday, as investors carried on ditching U.S. and South Korean memory-chip makers.
Alibaba’s American depositary receipts surged 9% to $107.01 ahead of the opening bell. Rival e-commerce platform JD.com added 2.9%, while search-engine provider Baidu rose 4.7%.
Those gains came as U.S. tech stumbled. Futures tracking the Nasdaq 100 slumped 1.2% lower on Wednesday, after President Donald Trump signaled that the cease-fire between the U.S. and Iran may be over.
South Korea’s highflying KOSPI Composite also struggled, plunging 5.4% as investors fretted about spiking oil prices.
The Chinese tech rally could be a sign that investors are pivoting toward developers of large-language models, after a monthslong spell of dominance for memory-chip makers like Micron and SK Hynix.
Barron’s argued on Monday that Chinese AI companies were well-positioned to disrupt the industry, given their chatbots are cheap relative to offerings from the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Alphabet.
Alibaba has sought to position its Qwen large-language model as a ChatGPT rival, but its ADRs have slumped 33% in 2026, dragged down by worries about the company’s aggressive AI spending plans.
Still, the rally could be a sign that the stock is about to turn a corner. Alibaba briefed analysts on Wednesday that its overall profit held steady over the June quarter, local outlet Jiemian News reported.
Alibaba didn’t respond to a request for comment from Barron’s.
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