Alibaba is nearing a deal to sell its gaming division, Lingxi Games, to Asian private equity firm Trustar Capital in a transaction valued at more than $1.5B. The move marks one of the clearest signals yet that Alibaba is willing to carve off entire business units to feed its AI and cloud computing ambitions.
Trustar Capital emerged as the leading bidder after beating out competition from Chinese gaming companies including 37 Interactive Entertainment and Century Huatong. The deal, if finalized, would transfer a gaming operation with roughly 1,200 employees, five self-developed studios, and the mobile gaming platform 9game to the private equity buyer.
From RMB 7B to something bigger
When Alibaba first began marketing Lingxi Games in June 2026, the company was targeting a valuation of RMB 7-9B, which translates to roughly $1.0-1.3B. Trustar’s winning bid apparently exceeded that range, pushing the deal north of $1.5B.
Lingxi Games is best known for “Three Kingdoms Tactics/Strategy Edition,” a mobile strategy title that has performed well in China’s competitive gaming market. But that success has also been something of a vulnerability. The unit’s growth has been heavily dependent on that single major title, a concentration risk that becomes more uncomfortable as China’s gaming market expansion has slowed.
Alibaba originally launched its gaming division in 2017 under its Digital Media and Entertainment Group. Nearly a decade later, the company has concluded that gaming doesn’t fit the picture it’s trying to paint for investors and partners.
The AI-shaped hole in Alibaba’s portfolio
This sale is part of a deliberate strategic realignment at Alibaba that has been accelerating for months. The company has been systematically trimming non-core assets to concentrate resources on artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure.
For Alibaba Cloud, which has been positioning itself as a major player in enterprise AI services across Asia, the freed-up capital could accelerate investments in GPU clusters, proprietary model development, and customer acquisition.
What Trustar sees in the deal
From Trustar Capital’s perspective, the acquisition represents a bet that Lingxi Games can perform better outside of a conglomerate structure that was never fully committed to gaming. With five self-developed studios already in place, Trustar has a development infrastructure to work with rather than needing to build one from scratch.
The 9game platform also adds distribution capability, giving the new owner a direct channel to players rather than complete dependence on third-party app stores.