Alibaba's $2 billion gaming exit signals where Beijing wants its money | Fortune

Alibaba will sell its video game development arm, Lingxi Games, in a deal worth more than $2 billion, removing the company from in-house game development as it shifts focus to AI. Bloomberg reported that Lingxi, the studio behind the mobile title Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition, is valued between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, but the parties have not publicly disclosed the sale price. Reuters cited an internal memo in which Lingxi CEO Zhou Bingshu said Alibaba was handing the studio to private-equity firm Trustar Capital due to sharper strategic focus on AI and cloud computing—areas tied to Beijing’s industrial priorities. Alibaba previously pledged around $53 billion over three years on AI and cloud infrastructure, and it targets $100 billion in AI revenue by 2031.