Alibaba opens AI data centre with local chips
Alibaba has launched an AI data centre running on 10,000 domestically produced AI chips, signalling a push to reduce reliance on foreign accelerators. The deployment was described as an explicit step toward a China‑centred AI infrastructure stack. (www.archyde.com/alibaba-launches-ai-data-center-with-10000-homegrown-chips-to-rival-nvidia/)
Alibaba and China Telecom have opened an artificial intelligence data center in Shaoguan, Guangdong, using 10,000 Alibaba-designed Zhenwu chips. (cnbc.com) The companies announced the facility on April 8, 2026. Alibaba said the chips are built for artificial intelligence training and inference, the two main jobs behind building models and running them after deployment. (cnbc.com) China Telecom will own and operate the site, while Alibaba supplies the semiconductors through its T-Head chip unit. The first phase is sized for models with hundreds of billions of parameters, and the partners said the site could grow to 100,000 chips. (cnbc.com) A data center like this is the warehouse behind artificial intelligence services: rows of servers packed with accelerators, the specialized chips that do the math for model training and response generation. Alibaba is trying to control more of that stack itself, from chips to cloud services to Qwen models sold through Alibaba Cloud. (cnbc.com) The timing tracks a wider shift in China’s technology sector after Washington tightened access to advanced foreign chips. The United States added new license requirements in April 2025 for several Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices artificial intelligence chips bound for China, and the Commerce Department revised its China semiconductor licensing policy again in February 2026. (cnbc.com) (bis.gov) Alibaba is making that bet as cloud computing becomes more central to its business. In Alibaba’s fiscal 2025 annual report, the company said Alibaba Cloud posted triple-digit growth in revenue from artificial intelligence-related products for seven straight quarters and returned to double-digit growth for the year. (hkexnews.hk) The company has also been reorganizing around artificial intelligence. On the same day as the data center announcement, Chief Executive Eddie Wu said he would lead a new technology committee with Alibaba Cloud Chief Technology Officer Li Feifei, Chief Artificial Intelligence Architect Zhou Jingren, and Group Chief Technology Officer Wu Zeming. (cnbc.com) Alibaba is not alone in the domestic-chip push. CNBC reported that a separate computing cluster built with Huawei Ascend 910C chips went online in March, showing that China’s biggest technology groups are building more local alternatives for artificial intelligence infrastructure. (cnbc.com) For Alibaba, the Shaoguan site is a test of whether its in-house chips can do commercial work at scale, not just in a lab. If the expansion to 100,000 chips happens, the company will be running one of its clearest attempts yet to build an artificial intelligence supply chain with fewer foreign parts. (cnbc.com)
