Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) has confirmed that it is the developer behind HappyHorse-1.0, an AI video model that recently climbed to the top of global benchmark rankings despite initially launching without attribution.
The model first appeared earlier this week on the Artificial Analysis benchmarking platform without identifying its creator and quickly secured the number one position in blind evaluations for both text-to-video and image-to-video generation.
On Friday, developers disclosed via a newly created account on X that HappyHorse is part of Alibaba’s ATH AI Innovation Unit and is still in development. Alibaba later confirmed to CNBC that the announcement was authentic.
The anonymous debut had fueled speculation over whether the model was built by a major tech company such as Tencent or Alibaba, or by an independent team.
Shares of Alibaba listed in Hong Kong closed 2.12% higher on Friday following the news, while its U.S.-listed shares rose about 0.7% in premarket trading.
Although Alibaba has previously released AI models with video generation features, none have attracted the same level of attention or achieved comparable rankings to HappyHorse in recent days.
The confirmation comes at a time when rivals are encountering challenges in the video AI space. OpenAI recently shut down its Sora video generation platform, citing a strategic pivot toward coding tools, enterprise clients, and broader AGI development, partly due to high computational costs.