A report says that the founder of China's Alibaba, Jack Ma, who has rarely been seen in public in the past three years, has reappeared at a school in Hangzhou.

Ma, 58, has kept a low profile since criticizing Chinese financial regulators in 2020.

Ma is the most well-known Chinese billionaire who disappeared amid a crackdown on tech entrepreneurs.

He recently returned to China after spending more than a year abroad, according to the South China Morning Post.

The newspaper, which is owned by Alibaba, said he made a short stopover in Hong Kong, where he met up with friends and briefly visited the "Art Basel" international art fair.

 She added that "Ma" was traveling to different countries to learn about agricultural technology, but she did not indicate the reason for his disappearance from view in recent ye

"GBT chat and similar technologies are just the beginning of the AI era. We should use AI to solve problems instead of letting it control us," he said.

Ma, once China's richest man, relinquished control of fintech giant Ant Group in January this year.

Some commentators saw this as further evidence that he had become an opponent of the Chinese Communist Party, because he had become so outspoken and powerful.

During a financial conference in October 2020, Ma criticized traditional banks. The following month, the Chinese authorities canceled at the last minute the planned £26bn Ant Group stock float, which would have been the world's largest, citing "major problems" with the company's organisation.

Since then, there have been reports of Ma being sighted in various countries, including Spain, the Netherlands, Thailand and Australia.

Last November, the Financial Times reported that Ma had been living in Tokyo, Japan, for six months.

When Ma first stopped appearing in public, there were rumors that he had been placed under house arrest or detained.

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