Alibaba to Hire 3,000 Interns Focusing on AI, Starting Spring 2025

Alibaba Sets Sights on AI Talent with Major Hiring Drive

Alibaba Group, one of China’s tech giants, is intensifying its focus on artificial intelligence (AI) as it rolls out an ambitious spring recruitment campaign.

The company is on the lookout for fresh graduate interns, with 3,000 positions up for grabs.

A striking half of these roles will centre around AI, highlighting Alibaba’s serious commitment to advancing the technology.

AI Takes Centre Stage in Recruitment Plans

The internships are designed for students set to graduate between November 2025 and October 2026, with opportunities spanning a range of Alibaba’s business units.

AI-related positions are particularly prominent, accounting for over 50% of the total roles.

In fact, more than 80% of openings within Alibaba Cloud will be AI-focused.

These efforts come as AI continues to make waves across industries, with DeepSeek, a Chinese start-up, sparking a nationwide push for AI integration.

Strengthening the Tech Talent Pool Amidst Industry Shortages

Despite a significant workforce reduction last year, as Alibaba streamlined its operations and reduced its offline retail presence by 24,940 employees, demand for tech talent remains high.

Alibaba’s Chief People Officer, Jane Jiang Fang, commented on the hiring push, saying,

“As a technology company committed to exploration and innovation, Alibaba is ramping up efforts to attract and cultivate AI talent. We aim to provide outstanding young professionals with broad career opportunities as we embrace the vast potential of the AI era.”

Opportunities Across Multiple Sectors and Global Locations

The first phase of recruitment will target key business units such as Alibaba Cloud, the AI-model research division Tongyi Lab, the food delivery service Ele.me, the mapping service Amap, and the gaming subsidiary Lingxi.

Later stages of recruitment will expand to other major units like Taobao, Tmall Group, and Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics provider.

Interns will have the chance to work across multiple locations, including Hangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Paris, and Dubai.

AI Investment Set to Soar with a Multi-Billion Yuan Plan

In addition to hiring new talent, Alibaba is pushing forward with a significant financial commitment to AI and cloud computing.

The company announced plans to invest at least 380 billion yuan (approximately US$52.2 billion) in AI and cloud infrastructure over the next three years.

This investment exceeds Alibaba’s total AI infrastructure spending over the past decade and stands as one of China’s largest private business investments in computing.

Alibaba Leads the Charge with Open-Source AI Models

Alibaba has also been making significant strides in AI model development.

The company recently launched QwQ-Max-Preview, an advanced reasoning model, and unveiled its Wan2.1 series of video-generation models.

Alibaba’s commitment to open-source AI has seen the release of over 100 models, including the Qwen2.5 series, which contributed to the creation of more than 100,000 models within the Hugging Face online developer community.

Alibaba’s investment in AI highlights its ambition to be a key player in the global tech industry.

As competition in the AI market intensifies, the company is positioning itself for significant growth and innovation in the coming years.