Alibaba Leads $293M Round in AI Video Start-Up

Alibaba's cloud division led a $293m funding round into ShengShu Technology, the Beijing-based start-up behind AI video tool Vidu, with Baidu Ventures and Luminos Ventures also participating. The investment follows an $88m Series A in February and will support development of a general world model. The funding comes as Alibaba revealed ownership of HappyHorse 1.0, an AI video model that topped the Artificial Analysis leaderboard. Chinese models are increasingly dominating video generation rankings, filling a gap left by OpenAI after it shut down Sora last month.