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Alibaba has reached a huge technological milestone that shocked many as it announced a new artificial intelligence chip on Wednesday and said it delivers three times the performance of its predecessor. The chip, better known as the Zhenwu M890, also adds 144 GB of GPU memory and 800 GB per second of interchip bandwidth.
The launch comes as Nvidia faces growing barriers in China. At the same time, Alibaba said it has already shipped 560,000 Zhenwu units to more than 400 customers across 20 industries.
Alibaba said the Zhenwu M890 builds on the current Zhenwu 810E. The company positioned the chip as a stronger option for domestic customers in China’s AI market. The chip expands Alibaba’s hardware push through its T-Head subsidiary. It also supports the company’s broader stack of hardware, computing, AI models, tools, and applications.
Alibaba also said its next-generation AI model, Qwen3.7-Max, will arrive soon. The company tied the chip launch to its wider AI work.
Chinese AI developers have long faced limits on buying advanced Nvidia processors because of U.S. export restrictions. Beijing has also increased scrutiny on the use of foreign AI chips inside China. That pressure has opened more room for local alternatives. Alibaba now joins Huawei and Cambricon in a domestic AI processor market that continues to expand.
‘Alibaba-designed AI chips are making headway with external customers,’ analyst Myron Xie said. He added that Alibaba’s chips are becoming one of the more popular domestic platforms in China.
Still, he said Alibaba has not disclosed compute performance. He also noted that memory and bandwidth figures remain behind those of major Western chip makers.
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Brady Wang of Counterpoint Research said the M890 gives China another option. He also said questions remain about how much manufacturing capacity Alibaba can secure from local foundries such as SMIC.
Wang said the M890 is not a true competitor to Nvidia’s H200 on raw silicon power. Even so, he said it can serve as a believable replacement in the Chinese market.
Leonid Mironov of Gavekal said Nvidia is unlikely to remain a long-term supplier across all of China. He also said Alibaba’s progress suggests investors should not ignore Alibaba and Tencent.
Alibaba and China Telecom also said in early April that they would launch a data center in southern China powered by Alibaba’s own chips. However, several details remain undisclosed, including per-chip pricing, shipment volumes, named customers beyond Alibaba Cloud, and the T-Head IPO timeline.
Alibaba’s Zhenwu M890 marks a new step in China’s push for domestic AI chips as Nvidia faces ongoing restrictions. The processor delivers stronger performance and wider bandwidth while supporting Alibaba’s expanding AI ecosystem, including its Qwen models and cloud infrastructure.
