Xiaomi, Alibaba step up AI hiring as core growth slows

Xiaomi and Alibaba are ramping up spring hiring as they compete for AI talent while their core smartphone and ecommerce businesses face pressure.

Xiaomi said that the Beijing-based company is recruiting top industry talent, graduates, and interns, and its careers site lists more than 200 openings across cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing.

Alibaba said AI roles make up over 80% of its open positions, up from around 60% and it added seven new AI job categories for campus recruitment, including agentic AI, across units such as Alibaba Cloud and chip design unit T-Head.

Xiaomi plans up to 16 billion yuan (US$2.31 billion) in AI R&D and capex this year despite shrinking profits, as it expands AI hiring.

🔗 Source: South China Morning Post

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

China’s tech giants are betting billions on ‘agent’ AI

Xiaomi plans to spend more than 60 billion yuan, about $8.7 billion, on AI over the next three years, far above an earlier 16 billion yuan figure 1.
Its AI research budget for this year has already passed that 16 billion yuan number 2.
Xiaomi is recruiting for “Miclaw” roles tied to its first smartphone AI agent, now running closed beta tests 1.
This “agentic AI” push tracks a broader move from chat tools to systems that can carry out multi-step tasks for users 2.
“Claw” comes from OpenClaw (an open-source framework for building AI “agents” that can use software tools and access files), which works like a personal AI assistant with access to tools and files on local devices 3.

Beyond hiring, AI is a move to protect hardware and cloud edge

The hiring wave supports tighter in-house stacks, not only new app features.
Xiaomi says it wants a “grand convergence” of its self-developed chips, operating system, and AI models on one device this year 1.
Alibaba is also staffing its chip design unit T-Head as it builds AI chips. Another report said Alibaba unveiled a new AI chip meant to compete with Nvidia in China 4.
Alibaba also spent 3.00 billion yuan over the Lunar New Year to market its Qwen AI assistant across services that include e-commerce and payments 4.