** U.S.-listed shares of China tech giant Alibaba Group BABA.N rise 2.7% to $98.60 in premarket trading
** Co releases new version of its Qwen 2.5 artificial intelligence model, claims model surpasses highly-acclaimed DeepSeek-V3
** Co says model outperforms advanced AI models from DeepSeek, OpenAI and Meta Platforms META.O
** DeepSeek's AI assistant launch sparked major selloff in global tech shares, as its supposedly lower development and usage costs hit stocks of rivals and semiconductor firms
** Alibaba's cloud unit previously slashed prices on a range of AI models after the release of DeepSeek-V2 last May
** Chinese markets closed for Lunar New Year holiday
** BABA shares up over 13% this month
(Reporting by Lisa Mattackal)
((LisaPauline.Mattackal@thomsonreuters.com;))