Alibaba shares rise 5% as it unveils ‘most powerful’ AI chip

Alibaba Group shares rose about 5% after the Chinese technology giant unveiled a new AI chip and outlined plans for a next-generation artificial intelligence model with up to 10 trillion parameters.

Alibaba Group shares rose about 5% after the Chinese technology giant unveiled a new AI chip and outlined plans for a next-generation artificial intelligence model with up to 10 trillion parameters.

The announcements, made by CEO Eddie Wu at Alibaba Cloud’s annual Apsara Conference in Hangzhou, highlight the company’s push to build capabilities across the AI technology stack, from chips and models to data-centre infrastructure.

Alibaba said on Tuesday that it was developing a new AI model with between 5 trillion and 10 trillion parameters, potentially more than four times the size of its current flagship Qwen 3.8 Max model, which has about 2.4 trillion parameters. The company said its Qwen team is continuing research into model architecture and data optimisation as it seeks to handle more complex and longer-horizon tasks.

The company also unveiled the Zhenwu V900, a new AI processor developed by its T-Head semiconductor unit. Alibaba described it as China’s most powerful AI chip, saying it delivers three times the performance of its predecessor, the Zhenwu M890. The company said up to 500,000 V900 chips can be clustered together to train large AI models. Mass production is expected to begin in early 2027.

The launch comes as Chinese technology companies race to develop domestic alternatives to Nvidia’s AI processors amid tighter U.S. export restrictions on advanced semiconductors. Alibaba’s announcements underscore its effort to reduce reliance on foreign hardware while expanding its AI capabilities.

Wu described the current period as the beginning of a “machine intelligence” era comparable to the Industrial Revolution and said the most transformative AI products had yet to arrive.

Alibaba is also targeting a major expansion of its cloud infrastructure. The company plans to increase Alibaba Cloud’s global data-centre capacity to more than 20 gigawatts by 2032, reflecting its expectation of rapidly growing demand for AI computing.

The announcements boosted investor sentiment, with Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares rising 5.1% to a one-month high, according to Reuters.

The moves mark a broader effort by Alibaba to strengthen its position in AI by developing its own chips, increasingly powerful models and the infrastructure needed to run them.