Alibaba unveils new AI chip in push for domestic alternatives

BEIJING/SINGAPORE, May 20 (Reuters) - Alibaba Group ‌on Wednesday unveiled a ​new ​AI chip, the Zhenwu M890, as the Chinese technology giant intensifies efforts to build domestic alternatives to Nvidia processors amid tightening U.S. export curbs.

The chip, developed ‌by Alibaba's semiconductor design subsidiary T-Head, delivers three times the performance of its ⁠predecessor, Zhenwu 810E. It is purpose-built for the emerging wave of AI "agents" — software systems that can carry out complex, ‌multi-step tasks with limited human oversight.

Alibaba ‌said the new processor is well-suited to handle the heavy memory and communication demands of agent workloads, where models must retain long stretches of context and coordinate with one ​another in real time.

The company also outlined a multi-year chip roadmap, saying it would follow the M890 with a successor called the V900 in the third quarter of 2027, and ⁠a further chip, the J900, in the third quarter of 2028. The V900 is expected to deliver another roughly threefold performance ​gain over the M890, Alibaba said, signalling a sustained cadence of in-house silicon upgrades.

The plan underscores China's growing efforts to produce locally developed AI ​chips as Washington bans the sale of the most ‌powerful U.S. processors to Chinese customers, and follows a similar announcement by Huawei last year.

Hangzhou-based Alibaba last year pledged to spend more than 380 ⁠billion yuan ($53 billion) on cloud and AI infrastructure over three years, its largest-ever commitment to the sector.

The investment reflects a broader bet across China's technology industry that demand for AI computing power will continue to ⁠surge as enterprises adopt agent-based applications.

Alibaba unveiled the chip at its annual Alibaba Cloud Summit, alongside a new ​server system, the Panjiu AL128, which packages 128 of the accelerators into a single rack.

The system is available immediately to Chinese enterprise customers through Alibaba Cloud's domestic model platform, known as Bailian.

T-Head said it has shipped ‌more than 560,000 Zhenwu units to date, with over 400 external customers across 20 industries, including automakers and financial services firms, having deployed the ‌chips.

Alibaba also announced Qwen 3.7-Max, the latest version of its flagship large language model, which it said ⁠is engineered for advanced coding and ‌long-running agent tasks. The company ​said the model can operate continuously for up to 35 hours without performance degradation.

(Reporting by Liam Mo in Beijing and Miyoung Kim in Singapore; Editing by ‌Jamie Freed)

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