Alibaba founder Jack Ma gets back into business with 'Ma's Kitchen Food'

By Jane Zhang

Jack Ma sparked speculation about his next endeavors after the billionaire seeded a small company to process and sell farming produce, in his latest venture since retreating from the spotlight at the height of a government-led industry crackdown.

The co-founder of Alibaba Group Holding set up “Hangzhou Ma’s Kitchen Food” last week with an initial registered capital of 10 million yuan ($1.4 million), according to corporate database Tianyancha. The business involves the sale of packaged agricultural products, according to information on China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System.

Ma’s whereabouts and activities have been the topic of intense discussion since 2020, when he stepped away from the limelight after Beijing clamped down on his twin companies — Alibaba and Ant Group Co. — as part of a broader campaign to contain an increasingly powerful private sector. 

Ma, whose comments about China’s outmoded financial system helped trigger the crackdown, has since largely devoted his time to agricultural pursuits though his foundation. He joins a spate of well-known entrepreneurs from the likes of Tencent Holdings Ltd. to Meituan who’ve devoted major sums toward the Communist Party’s “common prosperity” initiative. Xi Jinping’s administration has in recent years made elevating backward rural areas one of the cornerstones of Party efforts.
 

In March, Ma visited a school in Hangzhou in a carefully arranged public visit regarded as a sign he was beginning to resume public activities. He’s mostly focused on projects in agriculture and education, another of his passions. 

Few other details have emerged about his latest venture. Senior officials of his foundation hold top posts at the newly created firm, according to the South China Morning Post. An Alibaba representative directed Bloomberg’s request for comment to the Jack Ma Foundation, which didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Alibaba shuts quantum computing lab
 

Alibaba Group Holding has shuttered its quantum computing research lab, a sign that the Chinese e-commerce and cloud operator is considering more cutbacks to bulk up the bottom line.
 

Alibaba will donate its equipment to Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, where the company is based, a company spokesperson said Monday. The lab’s closure will result in the loss of about 30 staff, some of whom Alibaba may help find positions at the same college, a person familiar with the matter said, asking to remain unidentified discussing private decisions. China’s e-commerce leader is in the middle of an overhaul spearheaded by Joseph Tsai and Eddie Wu, two confidantes of co-founder Jack Ma who took over the company in September. 
 

This month, the pair announced they were killing the much-anticipated spinoff and listing of the cloud services division, an about-face that spurred speculation about other changes to Alibaba’s long-term roadmap. Before that surprise decision, the firm was in the midst a complicated six-way split that would break the company up into component businesses from commerce and entertainment to logistics.