Alibaba unveils Zhenwu V900 AI chip and trillion-parameter model plans

Alibaba Group unveiled the Zhenwu V900 artificial intelligence chip and outlined plans for a next-generation AI model with between 5 trillion and 10 trillion parameters at its annual Apsara Conference in Hangzhou on Tuesday, September 22, 2026. Chief executive Eddie Wu described the Zhenwu V900 as the most powerful AI chip in China today. Alibaba said the processor delivers three times the performance of its predecessor, the M890, and that a single cluster built on it can support up to 500,000 cards for frontier model training and inference. The chip was developed by the company's THead semiconductor unit. According to the company, it is scheduled for mass production and commercial release in the first quarter of 2027. The announcements form part of a broader strategy spanning AI models, chips and data centres. Wu identified those three areas as the cornerstones of the machine intelligence era, while chairman Joe Tsai said Alibaba is firmly investing in building fullstack AI to move the technology from breakthrough to value creation. Alibaba said its next-generation model, Qwen 4, is currently in training, with the upcoming Qwen 4.