Alibaba Group Holding has kicked off its spring hiring season with 3,000 internship openings for fresh graduates, half of them related to artificial intelligence (AI), as the Chinese e-commerce giant commits to advancing the technology.
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The recruitment campaign targets students graduating between November 2025 and October 2026, with internships spanning multiple business units. Nearly half of the roles – including more than 80 per cent of positions in the cloud computing arm – are AI-focused.
The scramble for talent by Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post, comes as Chinese start-up DeepSeek has set off a national frenzy to adopt AI in various industries and sectors, worsening a shortage of workers with knowledge in the technology.
While Alibaba cut its headcount by 24,940 to 194,320 last year owing to its divestment of offline retail operations, demand for tech talent remains strong.
“As a technology company committed to exploration and innovation, Alibaba is ramping up efforts to attract and cultivate AI talent,” Jane Jiang Fang, chief people officer, said in a hiring post on Thursday. “We aim to provide outstanding young professionals with broad career opportunities as we embrace the vast potential of the AI era.”
The first phase of the intern recruitment will focus on Alibaba Group, Alibaba Cloud and its AI-model research unit Tongyi Lab, food delivery service Ele.me, online mapping service and ride-hailing platform Amap, and video-gaming subsidiary Lingxi.