Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) unveiled its latest artificial intelligence (AI) chip and announced plans to significantly expand its data center capacity at Alibaba Cloud’s annual Apsara Conference.
On Tuesday, the tech giant introduced Zhenwu V900, its new AI chip. The chip is touted to deliver triple the performance of its predecessor, the Zhenwu M890, launched in May.
The new Zhenwu AI chip is slated to enter mass production and commercial release in the first quarter of 2027. Meanwhile, existing Zhenwu chips are already deployed by more than 650 customers across industries including automotive, finance, energy and manufacturing.
Alibaba also revealed plans to increase Alibaba Cloud’s global data center capacity to over 20 gigawatts by 2032. CEO of Alibaba Group, Eddie Wu, likened today’s AI development to the early stages of electrification, stating, “AI coding is simply the light bulb of the machine intelligence era.”
Alibaba Expands AI And Cloud Footprint
Earlier this month, Alibaba Group announced the expansion of its enterprise AI tools with an upgraded QoderWake platform that creates AI-powered "digital employees" capable of working across DingTalk, ByteDance’s Feishu and Tencent’s WeCom. Alibaba said nearly 100,000 digital employees have been deployed since April, completing about 2 million tasks in the past three months.
Furthermore, Alibaba Cloud is launching its first Latin American cloud region in São Paulo, Brazil. The new region includes two data centers offering computing, storage, networking, and AI-related cloud services. The move follows its Mexico cloud region, launched in February 2025, and is aimed at providing lower latency, stronger resilience, and local data governance for Brazilian businesses.
Tech Giants Ramp Up AI Infrastructure
Alibaba’s move comes amid a global trend of tech giants expanding their AI infrastructure. Earlier this month, Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) announced a collaboration with Australian partners to expand land, power, and shell capacity to host NVIDIA DSX AI factories, aiming for a 2-gigawatt buildout by 2027.
In July, Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) announced that it is investing more than C$13 billion ($9.27 billion) in a 1-gigawatt AI data center in Alberta, its first in Canada. The project is expected to support 3,000 construction jobs and 300 operational jobs, while Meta will spend another C$60 million ($42.77 million) on local infrastructure. The facility will run on 100% renewable energy and use water-efficient cooling technology.
Shares of Alibaba closed 2.19% higher at $115.75 on Monday, while the stock rose about 1.12% after-hours.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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