Il Nuovo Postiglione - Alibaba unveils new AI chip as Nvidia access remains stalled

Semiconductors have been at the centre of a fierce US-China race for AI supremacy, with Nvidia's most advanced chips banned from sale in China by Washington over national security concerns.

Beijing has in response sought to bolster its self-reliance, pouring resources into promoting its domestic industry and reportedly barring firms from buying Nvidia chips.

Alibaba said its new chip, Zhenwu M890, can deliver three times the performance of its predecessor Zhenwu 810E, which is widely believed to match the capabilities of Nvidia's H20.

The H20 is a less powerful version of Nvidia's AI processing units designed specifically for export to China.

A more high-end option, the H200, has been licensed to sell to China from the US side, but its access to the Chinese market appears to have stalled.

Zhang Guobin, founder of Chinese specialist website eetrend.com, said the timing of the Alibaba launch is "extremely precise".

"It's during a window when the prospects of the H200 entering the Chinese market are highly uncertain and Nvidia's business in China has effectively dropped to zero," he told AFP.

Nvidia boss Jensen Huang was part of a US business delegation that travelled to Beijing with President Donald Trump last week.

He said he had not discussed the H200 directly but added "the Chinese government has to decide how much of their local market... they want to protect".

The new Zhenwu M890 chip "provides a reliable option that is insulated from fluctuations in export controls, enabling domestic AI companies to formulate long-term technology roadmaps," said eetrend.com's Zhang.

"At the very least... (it) proves that in the field of high-end AI computing power, China now has a 'Plan B' that does not depend on Nvidia," he added.

However, when it comes to performance, Nvidia still holds its lead.

Even the H200 is significantly less advanced than the firm's top-range chips -- the Blackwell series and forthcoming Rubin processors.

Alibaba said to date it has shipped more than 560,000 chips in its Zhenwu series, to over 400 customers, including automakers and financial institutions.

The Hangzhou-based tech giant, which runs some of the country's biggest ecommerce platforms, has accelerated its pivot to AI in recent years.

Its open-source Qwen AI model family is popular among developers, surpassing one billion cumulative downloads since its initial launch in 2023.

Q.Bernardi--INP