Alibaba Unveils Zhenwu V900 AI Chip, Plans 10-Trillion-Parameter Model

Alibaba Group set an aggressive target of more than 20 gigawatts of global data-center capacity by 2032, sending its U.S.-listed shares up approximately 3.2% to $119.43. Reuters reported that Alibaba is developing an AI model with between five trillion and 10 trillion parameters while preparing its Zhenwu V900 accelerator for commercial availability in early 2027. The chip is expected to deliver roughly three times the performance of its predecessor, and Alibaba is designing clusters capable of scaling toward 500,000 chips. Twenty gigawatts equals 20,000 megawatts of potential data-center capacity, so utilization and customer demand will eventually matter as much as headline scale. The shares trade at $119.43 against a GF Value estimate of $121.27, leaving Alibaba about 1.52% below GF Value.

Alibaba shares rose more than 3% after the company unveiled what it called China's most powerful AI chip, claiming three times the performance of its previous generation, and announced plans to expand data center capacity and train a new AI model at the scale of 5 to 10 trillion parameters. On Holding shares climbed 11% as the Swiss sneaker maker said it expects sales growth in the high teens over the next few years while moving into sports including golf and football, though the stock remains down 41% year to date. Viking Therapeutics shares surged about 30% in pre-market trading, having earlier been up more than 50%, after the biotech reported positive top-line results from its VK2735-102 maintenance study showing its experimental obesity drug VK2735 maintained up to 97% of weight loss versus 61% for placebo when subjects switched to every-other-week dosing, with Leerink analysts calling the data stellar and saying it strengthens the drug's competitive profile. The study showed the drug led to 22% weight loss over 33 weeks, positioning it as a potential contender to Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. Roche also released positive trial data on its obesity treatment, adding to intensifying competition that left Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk shares slightly lower.

Arm Holdings shares rose 17% to $323 after CEO Rene Haas told CNBC that demand for the company's technology was off the charts and that he is increasingly convinced Arm can surpass its $2 billion revenue target for its developing AGI CPU business. That goal has moved quickly: Arm began in March with an initial target of $1 billion, raised it to $2 billion in May, and by September Haas said the pipeline was above that level. Nvidia's Vera CPU, Google's Axion, Amazon's Graviton5, and Microsoft's Azure Cobalt all use Arm-based computation, tying the company to the expanding trend of CPUs paired with AI accelerators. Haas also pointed to supply restrictions on wafers, substrates and testing capacity that could take years to work through, a problem that nonetheless shows demand is outstripping available capacity. The larger story is Arm's effort to move away from its usual licensing arrangement and capture more value from the chips themselves, and Monday's surge suggests investors are increasingly focused on that opportunity.