The Point for Asia Pacific

Research evidence excerpt

The Point for Asia Pacific

Point |

Tuesday, 04 August 2026

Top Call | Country Top Calls

Top Call

Alibaba Group Holding (BABA.N) - Assessing the Official Release of Qwen3.8-

Max & Read-Through From DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731

We believe Alibaba's recent strong share price performance likely reflects positive

cloud revenue read-throughs from AWS and Azure (which aligns with our

expectation of AliCloud revs to accelerate to 45% yoy in FY1Q27E), along with the

significantly improved benchmark scores of the new Qwen3.8-Max model

(released Aug 3). As noted previously, rapid iteration of AI models, as seen with

recent releases (DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 and Kimi K3), is fostering a "model-

agnostic" environment where enterprises adopt multi-model strategies, choosing

the best model and price for each task. This trend reduces the defensibility of any

single model, shifting competitive focus to the platforms and infrastructure that

manage them. We believe long-term success will require immense resources and a

loyal customer base. Consequently, companies with full-stack capabilities, from

chips and cloud infrastructure to models and applications, like Alibaba, are better

positioned to lead, in our view. We reiterate our Buy...

Alicia Yap, CFA

Taiwan Semiconductors - Earnings Season Half-way Recap

Taiwan tech companies' earnings season is in the half way. Despite recent market

turbulence, companies reaffirmed that AI investment cycle is broadening across

the entire hardware ecosystem. TSMC remains the clear manufacturing leader,

benefiting from sustained advanced-node demand and persistent CoWoS

tightness, while UMC is beginning to participate through specialty technologies

such as silicon photonics and AI power ICs. ASEH continues to benefit from rising

packaging and testing complexity.