Alibaba Unveils New Chip Design to Meet Surging Demand for AI

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is launching a new chip for agentic AI and inference computing, adding to a portfolio of semiconductors designed to drive its artificial intelligence ambitions.

The Hangzhou-based company’s research arm, Damo Academy, on Tuesday unveiled XuanTie C950, a central processor unit based on the RISC-V architecture. The CPU is optimized for cloud computing, and it allows customers to tailor the chip for their specific inferencing use, Alibaba said in a statement.

Alibaba is one of China’s leading AI players, and its chip subsidiary T-Head aims to compete with Nvidia Corp. and Huawei Technologies Co. in the country. ...