Alibaba shares jump as new AI chip, data center buildout plans unveiled

Shares of Alibaba jumped around 3% in Hong Kong on Tuesday after the Chinese technology giant unveiled a new artificial intelligence chip and plans to sharply expand its data center footprint, stepping up its bet on the infrastructure powering the AI boom.

At its cloud unit's annual flagship Apsara Conference in Hangzhou, Alibaba introduced the Zhenwu V900, its next-generation AI chip that it said delivers three times the performance of its predecessor, the Zhenwu M890 released in May.

The company also announced plans to expand Alibaba Cloud's global data center capacity to more than 20 gigawatts by 2032 as part of a broader roadmap spanning chips, cloud infrastructure and AI models.

The announcements underscore Alibaba's growing push into the machinery behind the AI boom, amid a flurry of AI infrastructure investments by its Western tech peers as the race for computing power intensifies.