1013 GMT - Alibaba's cloud business and improved AI model performance are supporting its shares recently, Citi analysts say in a research note. Alibaba's new Qwen3.8-Max model has "significantly improved benchmark scores," the analysts say. They note that as model developers speed up their model iterations, a "model-agnostic environment" where enterprises adopt multiple models for different tasks instead of locking into one single vendor, is emerging. While long-term success will require immense resources and a loyal customer base, companies with full-stack capabilities, from chips and cloud infrastructure to models and applications, like Alibaba, are better positioned to lead, they add. Meanwhile, positive cloud revenue read-throughs from AWS and Azure suggest strong cloud revenue for AliCloud as well, they add. Shares ended 7.0% higher at HK$125.20.