Analyst Says Alibaba (BABA) the ‘Cheapest Way to Play AI in the Entire World’

Group 1 - Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) is considered the "cheapest" way to invest in AI globally, according to analyst Thomas Hayes from Great Hill Capital [1] - The stock price of Alibaba has fluctuated, starting from over $100, dropping to $60, and currently at $175, with a significant free cash flow of $25 billion and $80 billion on the balance sheet [1] - Alibaba is recognized as the leading e-commerce retailer in China and the top player in the cloud sector, with the recent launch of Qwen 3.0 Max, a large language model with 1 trillion parameters [1] Group 2 - In the second quarter of 2025, Alibaba's stock was down 12.8%, following a remarkable 55.3% return in the previous quarter, despite good overall full-year results [2] - The company reported an 18% growth in Cloud revenue over the last year, and continued share buybacks, purchasing over 5% of its shares for the year ending March 2025 [2][3] - Alibaba represents 3.3% of the Alluvium Global Fund's portfolio, and the fund views it as a cost-effective way to gain exposure to AI initiatives and cloud infrastructure growth [3]