Chinese billionaire Jack Ma seen in China after a long absence

Mr Ma visited Hangzhou Yungu school that was established by Alibaba partners in 2017

Alibaba founder Jack Ma visits Hangzhou Yungu School in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China in this handout picture released on March 27, 2023. Hangzhou Yungu School/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITShow more

Jack Ma, billionaire co-founder of technology conglomerate Alibaba, visited a private school in the eastern city of Hangzhou in China, where the company has its headquarters, on Monday.

Mr Ma, 58, who has rarely been seen in public in the past three years, has kept a low profile since China’s regulatory crackdown on his companies in late 2020.

He visited Hangzhou Yungu school that was established by Alibaba partners in 2017.

Mr Ma met school staff, visited classrooms and spoke about challenges that latest technologies, such as artificial intelligence, might pose for the education sector, the school said in a post on its social media account.

“ChatGPT and similar technologies are just the beginning of the AI era … we should use artificial intelligence to solve problems instead of being controlled by it,” the post quoted him as saying.

The South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba Group, reported that he returned to China recently after nearly a year of overseas travel.

Mr Ma, a former English teacher, returned to China last week, two sources told Reuters.

In November, the Financial Times reported that Mr Ma had been living in Central Tokyo with his family members for nearly six months.

Mr Ma’s stay in Japan included stints in hot spring and ski resorts in the countryside outside Tokyo and regular trips to the US and Israel, according to the newspaper.

In January, Mr Ma was seen at a Michelin star Bangkok restaurant, Jay Fai.

Founded in 1999, Alibaba specialises in e-commerce, retail, FinTech (Ant Group) and technology.

In December 2020, Chinese regulators launched an anti-monopoly investigation into Alibaba.

An offshoot of Alibaba, Ant, set up in 2010, was due to start trading on November 5, 2020, after raising at least $35 billion in an initial public offering that attracted more than $3 trillion in orders from retail investors in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

However, it was abruptly halted after Alibaba and payments giant Ant were subject to anti-trust scrutiny over risks to financial stability.

Last year, however, Ant Group’s consumer finance unit received approval to more than double its registered capital, a sign of improvement towards resolving regulators’ concerns.

On December 30, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission said it approved Ant’s request to raise the amount of registered capital for the consumer unit to 18.5 billion Chinese yuan ($2.7 billion) from 8 billion yuan.