Alibaba unveils its new Zhenwu V900 AI chip and plans bigger Qwen models as it expands its shares and AI business.
The Chinese Tech Giant Doubles Down on AI
Alibaba is making a bigger bet on artificial intelligence.
The Chinese technology giant unveiled a new AI chip and revealed plans for much larger AI models. The news pushed Alibaba shares up by about 5%.
The announcements came at Alibaba Cloud’s annual Apsara conference in Hangzhou, China.Alibaba wants to control more parts of the AI supply chain. Its plans cover AI models, computer chips and data centres.
The move also comes as Chinese tech companies race to build local alternatives to Nvidia’s AI processors. US export restrictions have made access to some advanced chips more difficult.
New Qwen Models Could Reach 10 Trillion Parameters
Alibaba also announced plans for a massive expansion of its Qwen AI model family.
The company plans future models with between 5 trillion and 10 trillion parameters. Parameters generally help indicate an AI model’s scale and complexity.
For context, Alibaba’s current flagship Qwen 3.8 Max has 2.4 trillion parameters.
Alibaba is currently training Qwen 4. The company expects later Qwen 4.5 and Qwen 5 models to become even larger.
Chief Executive Eddie Wu said the models aim to handle “more complex, longer-horizon tasks.”
He also said the Qwen team had made progress in helping AI models identify weaknesses and create training data with limited human involvement.
New Zhenwu V900 Chip Targets AI Growth
Alibaba also unveiled its Zhenwu V900 AI chip through its T-Head semiconductor unit.
Wu said the new processor delivers three times the performance of its predecessor, the M890.
The company says up to 500,000 V900 chips can work together in clusters. Such systems could help train and run extremely large AI models.
Alibaba plans to begin mass production and commercial sales in the first quarter of 2027.
Alibaba Plans Huge Data Centre Expansion
The AI push does not stop with chips and models.
Alibaba plans to reach 20 gigawatts of data centre capacity by 2032. That expansion would provide more computing power for training and running advanced AI systems.
Wu described the period as the beginning of a “Machine Intelligence era.”
He also predicted that machines could eventually produce more than 1,000 times humanity’s collective “thinking” power.
With its latest plans, Alibaba is positioning itself across several key areas of the global AI race.
