AI excitement fails to lift HK, China stocks

Asian markets were mixed on Wednesday, with the Hang Seng Index closing one percent down to finish at 24,834 shrugging off an announcement by tech giant Alibaba that it would expand its overseas data centres. The firm, one of the frontrunners in China's AI industry, said the move would target markets across Europe and the Middle East. On the mainland, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 0.39 percent to 3,936 points. The Shenzhen Component Index closed 0.64 percent lower at 13,636 points Alibaba's announcement follows a renewed burst of confidence in artificial intelligence this week, with Anthropic and OpenAI releasing new, cheaper AI models within hours of each other. Anthropic's release comes a few weeks before its expected stock market debut. OpenAI has delayed its IPO plans until next year. Consumer hunger for AI apps buoyed tech stocks in other parts of Asia. Renewed buzz over AI helped South Korean stocks gain 0.9 percent, with Samsung up nearly one percent. The data hardware sector has been buoyed by strong consumer take-up of Meta's Muse agent, which has topped US app download charts in the past two weeks. Analysts are now keen to see how a similar product from Alphabet's ⁠Google Labs, known as CC, will fare...