Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is preparing to list its chipmaking arm, tapping strong investor interest in the small circle of companies aspiring to compete with Nvidia Corp. in the hot AI accelerator business.
As a first step, Alibaba plans to restructure the unit as a business partly owned by employees, people familiar with the matter said. The company will then explore an initial public offering, though the timing for that remains unclear, the people said, asking to remain anonymous discussing private plans. Alibaba representatives didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
The company is still at the early stages of the process and it’s unclear how much of a valuation T-Head could command. Debuts by rival chipmakers such as Moore Threads Technology Co. have drawn strong interest, reflecting bets that Beijing will prop up the industry as an alternative to American technology.
Alibaba has long explored chip design, seeking to secure a supply of the crucial components that underpin its data centers and AWS-like cloud services. AI chips are one facet of a broader campaign to become a leading AI company that rivals the likes of OpenAI.
Alibaba has been among the most aggressive investors in and advocates for AI since DeepSeek fired up the local tech industry. Chief Executive Officer Eddie Wu has pledged more than $53 billion toward infrastructure and AI development — an outlay he’s said the company could surpass over time.
The company, which also operates a Netflix-like streaming service and one of China’s biggest meal delivery platforms, revamped its mobile app Qwen in November as a major step into consumer-facing AI services. It plans to build the app into an all-around personal assistant by gradually integrating individual services under the Alibaba umbrella.
In January, it linked its flagship online shopping and travel services to Qwen, taking its biggest step yet to build the app into its one-stop artificial intelligence platform for consumers.
There’re signs that T-Head is making progress. China’s e-commerce leader signed a contract with the country’s No. 2 wireless carrier to deploy its Pingtouge AI accelerators. The chips will go into the mobile operator’s big new data center in northwestern China, alongside accelerators provided by rivals MetaX Integrated Circuits and Biren Technology Co.
Alibaba’s chip endeavor mirrors projects underway at major Chinese tech firms like Baidu Inc., which are exploring their own AI silicon with most advanced Nvidia chips banned from the country.
The US company’s AI accelerators are considered the gold standard in training cutting-edge models from OpenAI and Anthropic.
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