Alibaba Unveils Zhenwu V900 AI Chip, Targets Q1 2027 Production

AT&S announced an expanded long-term collaboration with Marvell Technology to increase advanced IC substrate capacity for next-generation AI and cloud infrastructure. Marvell Technology is the additional customer identified in AT&S's previously announced expansion of its Kulim manufacturing site in Malaysia, which includes the fit-out of Plant 2 and the construction of a new manufacturing facility for IC substrate cores and advanced packaging. The agreement builds on the companies' existing relationship and is supported by long-term customer commitments that AT&S said provide visibility for future growth while supporting a disciplined investment strategy. AT&S CEO Michael Mertin called the deal an important milestone and said the two companies are well positioned to capture opportunities created by the global build-out of AI infrastructure, while Marvell Senior Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer Vinay Krishna said the expanded collaboration strengthens Marvell's supply chain foundation as its data center business expands. AT&S, which employs around 15,000 people and operates production sites in Austria, China, Malaysia and India, said the expansion responds to industry shifts including the move from monolithic chips to chiplet-based designs and rising demand for larger substrate formats, higher integration density and increased layer counts.

Alibaba Group shares climbed about 3% Tuesday after the Chinese technology company introduced a new in-house processor and outlined plans for a much larger AI model. The company said its next-generation model could reach 5 trillion to 10 trillion parameters, well above its current flagship Qwen model. Alibaba also unveiled the Zhenwu V900 through its T-Head semiconductor unit, a processor designed to deliver three times the performance of its predecessor and scheduled to enter mass production in the first quarter of 2027. The hardware push is tied to a broader expansion of Alibaba's computing infrastructure, with Alibaba Cloud planning to take its global data-center capacity beyond 20 gigawatts by 2032. The moves come as Chinese technology companies seek greater control over AI computing amid U.S. restrictions on advanced processors, with Alibaba's plans pointing to a strategy spanning chips, models and cloud infrastructure rather than relying on a single layer of the AI stack.

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.