In a major milestone for China’s semiconductor independence, Alibaba has reportedly crossed the 100,000 unit mark in shipments of its latest advanced AI chips as of late January 2026.
The delivery, managed by Alibaba’s semiconductor arm T-Head (also known as Pingtouge), marks a significant step in the company’s effort to provide a viable domestic alternative to U.S.-manufactured processors like those from Nvidia.
1. The Powerhouse: Zhenwu 810E
The chip driving this surge is the Zhenwu 810E, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designed for both AI training and inference.
- Performance: Industry benchmarks suggest the Zhenwu 810E performs at levels comparable to Nvidia’s H20, a model specifically tailored for the Chinese market.
- Architecture: Developed as a parallel processing unit (PPU), it is optimized for “vertical integration”—meaning it is designed to run Alibaba’s own AI models (like Qwen) with radical efficiency.
- Market Lead: With over 100,000 units in the market, Alibaba has officially surpassed domestic rival Cambricon Technologies in terms of actual deployment volume for advanced AI silicon.
2. Strategic Pivot: Internal vs. External Markets
Alibaba’s success stems from its “captive demand” strategy, though 2026 marks its expansion into the merchant market.
- Alibaba Cloud: The bulk of these 100,000 chips are powering Alibaba’s own data centers, allowing for faster iterations and real-world testing.
- External Customers: T-Head has secured major external contracts in 2026, with automotive giants like XPeng and BYD reportedly ordering over 10,000 PPU chips each for intelligent driving and embodied intelligence applications.
- Public Listing: Following the shipment milestone, reports surfaced that Alibaba is preparing to take T-Head public (IPO) in late 2026 or 2027 to capitalize on the soaring valuation of Chinese chip assets.
3. The “Full-Stack” Data Center Vision
Alibaba is one of the few global firms currently offering a full-stack data center chip ecosystem:
- CPU: The Yitian 710 (Arm-based) is now widely used for video encoding and high-performance computing.
- SSD Controller: The Zhenyue 510 competes with Samsung in high-speed storage.
- Network Chip: T-Head is expected to launch a proprietary networking chip later in 2026 to complete the trifecta.
4. Market & Geopolitical Context
The 100,000-unit milestone arrived just as Goldman Sachs upgraded Alibaba’s valuation, citing successful chip tests in major Chinese data centers.
- U.S. Export Controls: With ongoing restrictions on Nvidia’s Blackwell and H200 series, Chinese tech giants are forced to buy “homegrown” to ensure supply chain security.
- Efficiency Push: In line with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) 2026 policy, Alibaba is prioritizing “hyper-scale” efficiency—aiming to run AI workloads at a significantly lower cost per watt than general-purpose GPUs.
Conclusion: From Prototype to Production
Crossing the 100,000 mark proves that Alibaba has successfully transitioned from experimental silicon prototypes to production-scale implementation. While global leaders like Nvidia still hold a performance edge in raw training power, Alibaba’s ability to manufacture and deploy at this scale suggests that the gap in the inference market is closing rapidly. As T-Head nears its IPO, it is no longer just a “chip division” but a cornerstone of China’s future AI infrastructure.
