Alibaba launches data center with 10,000 chips

Alibaba and China Telecom have opened a new data centre in southern China which runs on 10000 Zhenwu AI chips from Alibaba. The facility, located in Shaoguan, Guangdong province, is designed to handle AI models with hundreds of billions of parameters, highlighting China’s growing focus on homegrown technology.

Alibaba and China Telecom AI data centres

Alibaba’s Zhenwu chips are built for AI training and inference, which serves as part of the company’s overall strategy to create independent semiconductor manufacturing capabilities.

US restrictions on AI chip exports have accelerated China’s development of domestic alternatives since they banned Nvidia products three years ago. The data centre will start its operations with 10,000 chips and plans to reach 100,000 chips in future expansion efforts.

Alibaba creates chips through its T-head division while constructing data centres and developing AI models which it sells through its cloud computing services.

The company considers cloud computing to be its second fastest-growing business unit, which will use the Shaoguan facility to provide support for healthcare and advanced materials and other field applications.

Chinese companies focus on specific industries while using local technology, but US technology companies plan to invest approximately 700 billion dollars in artificial intelligence this year.

Moreover, Huawei’s computing cluster, which uses Ascend 910C chips, demonstrates China's national strategy that aims for AI self-sufficiency and technological dominance through its recent development initiatives.