(Yicai) Dec. 19 -- Alibaba Group Holding has been reducing its holdings in companies in the entertainment, semiconductor, and retail sectors this month, as the Chinese e-commerce giant’s investments increasingly target firms in artificial and embodied intelligence.

Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, a non-profit initiative that supports startups and young entrepreneurs, and Alibaba founder Jack Ma cut their stake in Huayi Brothers Media to less than 5 percent from 6 percent by selling more than 29.5 million shares in the Chinese film studio through block trades, Huayi Brothers announced on Dec. 17.

Alibaba also sold over 12.5 million shares of ASR Microelectronics through block trades and open-market transactions, paring its holding to 12.4 percent from about 15.4 percent, the semiconductor company said on Dec. 17. The stock was sold at prices ranging from CNY73.42 to CNY99.46 (USD10.42 to USD14.12), raising nearly CNY1.1 billion (USD150 million).

Alibaba-backed investment firms sold 41.6 million shares of Red Star Macalline Group via open-market trading, reducing their combined stake to 6.4 percent from 7.3 percent, the furniture retailer announced on Dec. 16. Hong Kong exchange data later showed Alibaba trimmed its stake further to 5.7 percent.

On Dec. 10, Meinian Onehealth Healthcare Holdings said Alibaba affiliate Hangzhou Haoyue Enterprise Management plans to sell up to 3 percent of the Chinese healthcare providers’ total share capital through block trades and open-market transactions within three months.

Over the past two years, Alibaba has pursued a strategy of prioritizing investment in core businesses while scaling back non-core operations and traditional retail investments. At the same time, the Hangzhou-based firm has increasingly concentrated investments in AI, particularly embodied intelligence. AI has accounted for about half of its investments since 2023, up from just 4 percent previously, per the Tianyi Research Institute’s figures.

As part of this shift, Alibaba affiliate Hangzhou Haoyue became a new shareholder in embodied-intelligence developer Noematrix earlier this month, with that company’s registered capital rising to about CNY16.2 million (USD2.3 million) from CNY14.9 million, according to business data platform Tianyancha.

In January, Hangzhou Haoyue also took a stake in Robotera, a Chinese humanoid robot maker focused on embodied intelligence. In September, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group made its first direct investment by leading a funding round for X Square Robot, a startup developing general-purpose embodied intelligence models.

Other embodied intelligence firms Alibaba has invested in include LimX Dynamics, Unitree Robotics, Galaxea Dynamics, and Linkerbot.

The number of AI agents and robots working alongside humans could eventually exceed the global population in the future, Eddie Wu, Alibaba chief executive officer and chairman and CEO of Alibaba Cloud, said at the Apsara Conference in September.

Embodied intelligence is becoming an important area for Alibaba Cloud's future investments in AI applications and computing power usage, Wu added.

Editor: Futura Costaglione