
Alibaba's open-source Sora-like AI video model tops third-party rankings
Advertisement
The cloud computing unit of Alibaba last week unveiled Wan 2.1, the latest iteration of its Sora-like video model, boasting performance that rivals other leading offerings. As of Monday, it ranked as the top video-generation model on the VBench Leaderboard, a benchmark test for video generation, and was the only open-source model among the top five.
Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post, is doubling down on its AI strategy, investing significantly in models and computing power.
The Chinese tech giant has budgeted
at least 380 billion yuan (US$52.4 billion) for computing resources and AI infrastructure over the next three years, marking the largest-ever allocation by a private Chinese entity.
Its shares rose 3.5 per cent in Hong Kong on Monday morning.
Advertisement
Alibaba Cloud has open-sourced four variants of the new model series, making them freely available for academics, researchers and commercial institutions worldwide to use and modify.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


HKFP
5 hours ago
- HKFP
China vice premier to meet US delegation for trade talks, Beijing says
Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng will meet a US delegation for talks next week in Britain, Beijing announced Saturday amid a fragile truce in the trade dispute between the two powers. He will visit the United Kingdom from June 8 to 13 at the invitation of the British government, China's foreign ministry said in a statement. It said He and American representatives will co-chair the first meeting of the China-US economic and trade consultation mechanism. US President Donald Trump had already announced on Friday that a new round of trade talks with China would kick off in London beginning Monday, after he spoke by phone with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in a bid to end a bitter battle over tariffs. Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer would meet the Chinese team. The discussions will mark the second round of such negotiations between the world's two biggest economies since Trump launched his trade war shortly after returning to the White House in January. A first meeting, held in mid-May in Geneva, brought a pause to the US-China trade dispute. But Trump then accused Beijing of not respecting the terms of the de-escalation agreement. On Thursday the Republican president finally discussed the issues with Xi for the first time since the trade tensions soared, assuring that the conversation had been positive. Xi for his part told Trump the two should 'correct the course' of bilateral relations, according to remarks quoted by official Chinese media.


South China Morning Post
9 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Angered by Trump's ‘unjustified' tariffs, Australia chases new trade deals
Australia will push to expand free-trade agreements with other countries to reduce its reliance on the United States, Trade Minister Don Farrell said on Sunday, slamming President Donald Trump's 'unjustified' tariffs. Advertisement Australia is a close US ally but has been slugged with a blanket 10 per cent tariff on goods exported to the US, rising to 50 per cent on steel and aluminium, as part of Trump 's sweeping global duties. 'I'm hopeful that those countries around the world who do believe in free and fair trade can reach an agreement to extend free-trade agreements across the globe, so that irrespective of what the Americans might choose to do, we have a greater diversity of trading partners,' Farrell told Sky News. He was speaking after talks last week in Paris with the World Trade Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other countries which he said had focused on preventing 'protectionism' and encouraging free and fair trade. 03:01 US appeals court allows Donald Trump's tariffs to stay in effect US appeals court allows Donald Trump's tariffs to stay in effect Trade between Australia and the US is worth an estimated A$100 billion (US$65 billion) a year, with Australia buying more from the US than it is selling, Farrell said.


RTHK
10 hours ago
- RTHK
CE says SAR to keep free port status regardless
CE says SAR to keep free port status regardless Chief Executive John Lee said free port status, and the zero tariffs that go with it, create trade. File photo: RTHK Chief Executive John Lee on Sunday said he would uphold Hong Kong's free port status and wouldn't retaliate even if China-US relations worsened. Lee made the comments in an interview with South China Morning Post as Chinese and US officials prepare to meet this week in London for more trade talks. Lee said free port status, and the zero tariffs that go with it, create trade. He said this was an integral part of what made Hong Kong successful and it shouldn't be killed off. Referring to US President Donald Trump's global trade war, Lee said "just because somebody has done something wrong, I won't copy him and do wrong things." He also said the SAR government had contingency plans for a worst case scenario, although he declined to say what they were. "I don't want to talk about the worst case scenario because it may not happen," Lee said. "I don't want people to be alarmed." The Chief Executive also said the government would help businesses find new overseas markets.