Hong Kong stocks edge up as Alibaba gains after AI model launch

Hong Kong stocks edged higher on Tuesday, supported by gains in heavyweight technology names, as investors weighed developments in China’s artificial intelligence sector.

The Hang Seng Index rose 0.36 percent to 26,863, while the Hang Seng Tech Index added 0.16 percent to 5,734.

Alibaba (9988) gained about 1 percent in early trade after unveiling its flagship reasoning model, Qwen3-Max-Thinking, which the company said delivers performance comparable to leading global models such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 and Google’s Gemini 3 Pro, marking a major step forward for China’s large language models.

Tencent (0700) climbed 0.08 percent, while Meituan (3690) was flat. Xiaomi (1810) added 0.06 percent, while JD.com (9618) slipped 0.2 percent and Baidu (9888) fell 1.7 percent.