Alibaba to Hand Dakar's Private Cloud to Senegal as Apple Qwen Rollout and November 19 Earnings Converge

Alibaba has committed to transferring the private cloud built for the 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Dakar to Senegal once the event wraps, turning Games infrastructure into a permanent national platform. The November 2 announcement stretches the project well beyond sport: the company's cloud and AI stack will run the event itself, support digital operations and spectator engagement, and then remain in place as sovereign infrastructure.

That long-tail plan sits alongside a busier stretch for Alibaba's AI business. Apple has confirmed it will use Alibaba's Qwen model to power Apple Intelligence in mainland China, with public availability targeted for December alongside iOS 27.3. Roughly a week ago the integration moved into developer beta testing, folding Qwen into Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence — giving the model a distribution channel through Apple's own system features.

Mizuho lifts its target

Analysts have taken note. On Tuesday Mizuho raised its price target on Alibaba to $200 from $195 while keeping an Outperform rating, pointing to broader demand for artificial intelligence and more disciplined spending across the competitive landscape. Media coverage flagged the widening reach of Alibaba's models via Apple Intelligence in China as a share-price driver, with Chinese tech and AI names also lifted by a broadly positive market mood.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Alibaba?

The stock added 2.0% on Friday in euro terms. Earlier in the session, Hong Kong-listed Chinese technology shares had come under pressure as a Wall Street selloff spilled into Asia, and Alibaba was among the names caught in that move, according to media reports.

On the disclosure front, Alibaba published its "2026 AI for Good Action Report" on Thursday, setting out 26 use cases spanning healthcare, education, environmental protection and scientific research.

Board review precedes the print

Investors now turn to the September-quarter scorecard. Alibaba said Friday it will release unaudited results for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, before the US market opens on November 19. The board is scheduled to review the unaudited figures for the three and six months to that date on November 18, meaning the public release follows the planned board review of both the quarterly and half-year numbers.

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