Amid growing efforts to build local alternatives to U.S. semiconductor technology, Alibaba Group has launched its new AI chip, Zhenwu M890. The announcement marks another major step in China’s push to strengthen domestic AI and cloud computing capabilities amid tightening U.S. export restrictions on advanced processors.
The chip was developed by Alibaba’s semiconductor design unit, T-Head, and delivers 3 times the performance of its predecessor, Zhenwu 810E. The processor has been designed specifically for AI “agents,” which are advanced software systems capable of handling complex and multi-step tasks with limited human involvement.
Alibaba stated that the M890 is built to manage the heavy memory and communication requirements of agent-based workloads, where AI models must process long contexts and coordinate with each other in real time.
The company also revealed its long-term chip roadmap. Alibaba plans to launch the V900 chip in the third quarter of 2027, followed by the J900 in the third quarter of 2028. According to the company, the V900 is expected to deliver another nearly 3-fold performance improvement over the M890.
The announcement reflects China’s broader efforts to develop homegrown AI chips as Washington continues restricting sales of advanced U.S. processors to Chinese firms. The move also follows similar developments announced by Huawei last year.
Alibaba had earlier committed more than 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) toward cloud and AI infrastructure investments over 3 years, marking its largest investment in the sector so far.
The company introduced the chip during its annual Alibaba Cloud Summit alongside the Panjiu AL128 server system, which combines 128 accelerators into a single rack. The system is now available to enterprise customers in China through Alibaba Cloud’s domestic model platform, Bailian.
T-Head said it has shipped more than 560,000 Zhenwu units so far, with over 400 external customers across 20 industries already deploying the chips.
Alibaba also announced Qwen 3.7-Max, the latest version of its flagship large language model, which the company said can continuously operate for up to 35 hours without performance degradation.
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