Alibaba sells gaming arm Lingxi Games as tech big sharpens deal with AI and e-commerce

Alibaba Group Holding has agreed to promote its wholly owned gaming enterprise Lingxi Games to Trustar Capital because the Chinese know-how big pivots away from noncore sectors to prioritise e-commerce and synthetic intelligence, based on an inner letter issued on Monday.

“As part of Alibaba’s broader strategy to sharpen its focus, the group has decided to entrust Lingxi to Trustar Capital,” acknowledged the letter seen by the South China Morning Post and signed by Lingxi CEO Zhou Bingshu. The monetary phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed.

The sale of the unit comes because the Hangzhou-based group concentrates assets on its e-commerce, cloud computing and AI companies. The deal follows the offloading of different noncore belongings, together with exits from hypermarket operator Sun Art Retail and division retailer chain Intime Retail.

Lingxi was formally established as a model in 2019, stemming from Alibaba’s current gaming operations and its 2017 acquisition of Ejoy, the studio based by former NetEase chief working officer Zhan Zhonghui. The largely stand-alone enterprise has since grown into one of many group’s extra profitable ventures.

The unit operates a number of in-house growth studios in addition to gaming platforms Jiuyou and JiaoYiMao. Its reporting line shifted to Alibaba chief monetary officer Toby Xu Hong in 2025, based on Chinese gaming media outlet Game Grape on the time.