** Hong Kong shares of Alibaba Group 9988.HK jump 3.6% to HK$145.9, their highest since November 2021, and are on course for third consecutive session of gains
** Alibaba releases an artificial intelligence $(AI)$ reasoning model QwQ-32B, which it said was on par with global hit DeepSeek's R1
** Alibaba said the QwQ-32B demonstrated capabilities in mathematical reasoning, coding and general problem-solving in benchmark tests, performing close to top models such as OpenAI's o1 mini and DeepSeek's R1
** Hang Seng Commerce & Industry Index .HSNC climbs 0.8%, Hang Seng Tech Index .HSTECH rises 1.1%, and Hang Seng Index .HSI adds 0.5%
** Hong Kong-listed stock up 71.6% YTD
(Reporting by Donny Kwok)
((donny.kwok@thomsonreuters.com))