Alibaba has joined the growing pool of Chinese tech giants that are developing their own chipsets as the White House sets it eyes on the country's budding technology circle. The New York-listed online retail giant unveiled its Xuantie 910 processor on Thursday.
According to Bloomberg, the Xuantie 910 processor supports several artificial intelligence (AI) applications as well as connected devices. Industry analysts believe Alibaba's latest move is in line with Beijing's goals of going independent from foreign software and hardware.
In a statement, the Jack Ma-founded company said its first-ever processor would "help drive the growth of the RISC-V open-source community in Asia and globally," adding that it "is designed to serve a lot more heavy-duty IoT applications."
Alibaba established its first chip-manufacturing unit in 2018 and Xuantie is the first processor to have been successfully created by the department. Aside from supporting China's bid towards self-dependence, the product is considered as part of the e-commerce giant's expansion of businesses revolving around the Internet of Things (IoT) and AI.
While Chinese companies like Alibaba may be a long way off from the advanced chip technologies that South Korean and American chip-makers have displayed, industry experts are confident that Chinese tech firms have the capacity and knowledge to make the design for high-end chips.
Multiple analysts previously noted that Chinese technology has a huge potential in turning around the current global tech environment. Alibaba's latest reveal could be an early sign that China is catching up with the U.S. in terms of AI development and chip-production.
China is considered one of the countries that rely heavily on the United States for the completion of its semiconductors. Beijing has urged its home-grown companies to be committed towards achieving a greater sense of self-dependency, following Washington's blacklisting of Huawei in May.
Xuantie is Alibaba's response to the Chinese government's call, while Huawei has yet to unveil its own processor. AI firm Horizon Robotics is also expected to reveal its own artificially-intelligent chips in the near future.
As of January, a state-owned newspaper revealed that 85 percent of Chinese demand for semiconductors was met by imports from foreign providers, including U.S. suppliers. It is expected that the figures will gradually contract as more domestic firms pursue chip-making projects.
Alibaba's Xuantie is expected to be helpful in applications that involve 5G telecommunications as well as autonomous driving. It also promises lower costs compared to other systems used in the said applications.
As part of the firm's efforts to encourage innovation in China, global developers who are interested in the processor can download several codes on GitHub at no cost.
