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Artificial intelligence
Tech

As AI race with US intensifies, China’s Alibaba launches 10,000-card computing cluster

Cluster in Shaoguan powered by domestically developed Zhenwu chips latest evidence that China is doubling down on home-grown infrastructure

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In collaboration with China Telecom, Alibaba has deployed a 10,000-card intelligent computing cluster powered by its Zhenwu AI chips in the Shaoguan data centre in Guangdong province. Photo: Sina
Iris Dengin ShenzhenandAnn Caoin Shanghai

China is ramping up efforts in the AI race, as tech giants Alibaba Group Holding and Huawei Technologies deploy massive computing clusters in the push to develop home-grown infrastructure.

E-commerce giant Alibaba has announced the deployment of a 10,000-card intelligent computing cluster powered by the Zhenwu AI chips developed by its T-Head semiconductor design arm.

Launched in collaboration with China Telecom in the Shaoguan data centre in Guangdong province, the “fully domestic” cluster was the first Zhenwu-powered project of such scale in the Greater Bay Area, Alibaba’s cloud unit said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

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The Zhenwu-powered cluster is the latest evidence that China is doubling down on home-grown infrastructure to supercharge rapidly evolving AI development and meet surging demand as the artificial intelligence race with US rivals including Meta, Microsoft and Elon Musk’s xAI intensifies.

The announcement of the Alibaba-backed cluster followed the activation of the country’s first 10,000-card intelligent computing cluster, built with Huawei’s Ascend 910C AI chips, in Shenzhen, Guangdong, late last month.
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The new cluster showed China’s advanced computing power was “moving from high-end performance breakthroughs to large-scale industrial implementation”, Alibaba Cloud said in its statement on Tuesday.

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