Chinese language tech large Alibaba unveiled plans on Wednesday to increase its abroad knowledge centres, concentrating on markets throughout Europe and the Center East.
Hangzhou-based Alibaba is without doubt one of the frontrunners in China’s synthetic intelligence business, with its Qwen mannequin among the many world’s most downloaded AI fashions.
The corporate mentioned it will “set up its first cloud areas” in Turkey, Finland and the Netherlands, whereas “increasing its knowledge centre footprint in Malaysia, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, France and Hong Kong” over the following 12 months.
The announcement got here forward of a extremely anticipated assembly between Chinese language President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump in Washington, the place the 2 leaders are anticipated to debate commerce tensions, amongst different matters.
Beijing and Washington are locked in a tech rivalry more and more centred on frontier industries together with semiconductors, AI and robotics.
Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu mentioned on Tuesday that the corporate was planning to coach an AI mannequin with 5 to 10 trillion parameters, which might make it a number of instances larger than the present largest Chinese language mannequin.
Alibaba is concentrating on greater than 20 gigawatts of worldwide knowledge centre capability by 2032, Wu mentioned throughout the agency’s annual flagship convention in Hangzhou.
The corporate additionally unveiled a brand new AI chip on the convention, the Zhenwu V900 — which it mentioned would ship thrice the efficiency of its predecessor, Zhenwu M890.
“It is probably the most highly effective AI chip in China right now,” Wu mentioned.
The Zhenwu M890 is broadly believed to be two instances extra highly effective than the chip custom-made for the Chinese language market by US pace-setter Nvidia, the H20.
Washington has lengthy tried to sluggish China’s progress with export controls on the superior chips wanted for cutting-edge AI, blocking entry to top-end US semiconductors resembling Nvidia’s.
Beijing’s push for technological self-reliance has additionally inspired Chinese language expertise corporations to undertake home chips as options to international merchandise.
ll/rox/hol
Alibaba
NVIDIA
