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Consumers enjoy themselves at Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street, the busiest commercial tourist landmark in Shanghai, China, May 5, 2023.

CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Analysts are bullish on Chinese big tech firms even though recovery looks uneven across companies and their latest earnings.

While search engine giant Baidu beat revenue and profit estimates for the first quarter of 2023 and Tencent bounced back to growth after consecutive negative and flat quarters, Alibaba missed first-quarter revenue expectations and its Hong Kong-listed shares slid almost 5% on Friday.

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“Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent reported — most of the earnings were a beat,” Ronald Keung, head of Asia Internet Research at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” Friday.

Alibaba missed analysts’ revenue estimates, but revenue rose 2% year on year to hit 208.2 billion Chinese yuan ($29.6 billion).

The tech giant’s domestic commerce unit fell 3% in the first quarter, while the cloud business was down 2% — highlighting concerns that a Chinese consumer spending rebound may not be as strong as expected.

Noting the decline in Alibaba’s shares, Jiong Shao, analyst at Barclays said on Friday, ahead of the weekend’s Group of Seven summit: “I think that there have been some geopolitical concerns … Investors are concerned about potential sort of a sanction against China and against Chinese companies.”

The leaders of the G-7 were in Hiroshima, Japan on the weekend to discuss global and regional issues, including challenges posed by China’s policies and practices.

In a joint statement G-7 leaders acknowledged that there’s a need to de-risk and diversify from China — not decouple. They highlighted the need to “address challenges posed by China’s policies and practices” and “counter malign practices, such as illegitimate technology transfer or data disclosure.”

It'll be an 'audacious endeavor' for Alibaba to split company into six units, says Barclays

But analysts expressed optimism when Alibaba announced plans to spinoff its Cloud business as a separate, public traded company, as well as list its logistics and grocery divisions during the tech giant’s earnings call on Thursday.

Shawn Yang of Blue Lotus Research Institute said in a report that the firm is “positive on the effect of separate listing and disclosures of several business units.”

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told CNBC that Alibaba’s plan to spin off its Cloud unit was a “no brainer strategic move that we believe adds to the sum of the parts valuation on Baba” and a “step in the right direction for the Alibaba story.”

The regulatory environment for Internet companies appears to be easing and we see Alibaba as the key beneficiary as a China proxy.

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Alibaba Cloud, the computing unit behind the tech firm’s ChatGPT-style product Tongyi Qianwen, is “really the jewel in the crown,” said Shao, who noted that artificial intelligence has the ability to change the way people do things and even humanity.

“The value of Alibaba Cloud could be easily in the north of about $100 billion two, three years down the road,” said Shao.

Still recovering

E-commerce competition in China will be 'more intense' this year, says Goldman Sachs

“I think the e-commerce numbers do show some of the recovery on a one-year basis and on a two-year basis, we are seeing some signs of this consumption gradually recovering,” said Keung.

“Travel has been strong and goods kind of started to really pick up in the month of March with apparel.”

Keung said they “expect some attractive pricing to drive demand during the 618 shopping festival.” The 618 shopping festival, which happens on June 18, is one of China’s most important shopping festivals.

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CNBC Daily Open: Beauty is in the eye of the U.S. jobs report beholder

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CNBC Daily Open: Beauty is in the eye of the U.S. jobs report beholder

Business representatives staff a table at a career fair in Harlem hosted by Assemblymember Jordan Wright on Dec. 10, 2025, in New York City.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

The U.S. November jobs report has something for everybody.

Those convinced of weakness will highlight the higher-than-expected unemployment rate as well as the number of jobs shrinking in October.

On the other hand, proponents of a strong economy will focus on jobs growth in November beating estimates, and point out that the increase in the unemployment rate was mostly because the labor force grew, as CNBC’s Jeff Cox noted.

Without any definitive judgment that can be made on the state of the labor market, traders left their bets on interest rate cuts in January mostly unchanged. It’s currently at 25.5%, around one percentage point higher than before the release of the November jobs report, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

“Today’s data paints a picture of an economy catching its breath,” said Gina Bolvin, president at Bolvin Wealth Management Group. “Job growth is holding on, but cracks are forming. Consumers are still standing, but not sprinting.”

That ambivalence was reflected in markets as well. Major U.S. indexes were mixed: The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.24% and 0.62% respectively, while the Nasdaq Composite registered a mild gain of 0.23%, thanks to Tesla stock closing at an all-time high.

Whether you’re a bull or a bear, Tuesday’s tea leaves will show you what you want to see — but beware confirmation bias.

What you need to know today

And finally…

A general view looking past Tower Bridge toward Residential and commercial skyscrapers in Canary Wharf on June 26, 2025 in London, United Kingdom.

John Keeble | Getty Images News | Getty Images

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OpenAI in talks with Amazon about investment that could exceed $10 billion

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OpenAI in talks with Amazon about investment that could exceed  billion

Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI Inc., during a media tour of the Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Texas, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025.

Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images

OpenAI is in discussions with Amazon about a potential investment and an agreement to use its artificial intelligence chips, CNBC confirmed on Tuesday.

The details are fluid and still subject to change but the investment could exceed $10 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the talks are confidential. The Information first reported on the potential deal.

The discussions come after OpenAI completed a restructuring in October and formally outlined the details of its partnership with Microsoft, giving it more freedom to raise capital and partner with companies across the broader AI ecosystem.

Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI and backed the company since 2019, but it no longer has a right of first refusal to be OpenAI’s compute provider, according to an October release. OpenAI can now also develop some products with third parties.

Amazon has invested at least $8 billion into OpenAI rival Anthropic, but the e-commerce giant could be looking to expand its exposure to the booming generative AI market. Microsoft has taken a similar step and announced last month that it will invest up to $5 billion into Anthropic, while Nvidia will invest up to $10 billion in the startup.

Amazon Web Services has been designing its own AI chips since around 2015, and the hardware has become crucial for AI companies that are trying to train models and meet growing demand for compute. AWS announced its Inferentia chips in 2018, and the latest generation of its Trainium chips earlier this month.

OpenAI has made more than $1.4 trillion of infrastructure commitments in recent months, including agreements with chipmakers Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom. Last month, OpenAI signed a deal to buy $38 billion worth of capacity from AWS, its first contract with the leader in cloud infrastructure leader.

In October, OpenAI finalized a secondary share sale totaling $6.6 billion, allowing current and former employees to sell stock at a $500 billion valuation.

WATCH: Oracle says there have been ‘no delays’ in OpenAI arrangement after stock slide

Oracle says there have been 'no delays' in OpenAI arrangement after stock slide

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Shares of Chinese chipmaker MetaX soar nearly 700% in blockbuster Shanghai debut

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Shares of Chinese chipmaker MetaX soar nearly 700% in blockbuster Shanghai debut

Narumon Bowonkitwanchai | Moment | Getty Images

Shares of Chinese chipmaker MetaX Integrated Circuits soared about 700% in their market debut in Shanghai on Wednesday, after the company raised nearly $600 million in its initial public offering.

Shares, which were priced at 104.66 yuan in the IPO, surged to over 835 yuan on debut, marking a 697% jump.

Similar to Moore Threads, which saw a robust debut at the start of the month, MetaX develops graphics processing units for artificial intelligence applications, tapping into a fast-growing sector driven by rising adoption of AI services.

MetaX is part of a growing cohort of local chipmakers building AI processors, reflecting Beijing’s push to reduce dependence on U.S. chips following Washington’s tech curbs on export of high-end technology to China.

Washington has imposed export curbs on U.S. chip behemoth Nvidia, barring sales of its most advanced AI chips to China.

Newer Chinese players such as Enflame Technology and Biren Technology have also entered the AI space, aiming to capture a share of the billions in graphics processing unit, or GPU, demand no longer served by Nvidia. Chinese regulators have also been clearing more semiconductor IPOs in their drive for greater AI independence.

Earlier this month, shares of Moore Threads, a Beijing-based GPU manufacturer often referred to as “China’s Nvidia,” soared by more than 400% on its debut in Shanghai following its $1.1 billion listing.

Macquarie’s equity analyst Eugene Hsiao said investor enthusiasm around Chinese AI-chip IPOs such as MetaX is partly shaped by longer-term expectations that China will build a self-sufficient semiconductor ecosystem as tensions with the U.S. persist.

“For that to work, you need these players. You need names like Moore Threads, Meta X, etc,” he said.

“So I think when investors are looking at these IPOs, they implicitly are thinking about the nationalistic element,” Hsiao noted, adding that the main driver of the frenzy, however, was the firms’ growth potential.

— CNBC’s Dylan Butts contributed to this article.

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