Alibaba officially announced the Zhenwu V900, its latest processor designed for training and inference tasks of artificial intelligence models. According to the company, this accelerator demonstrates three times the performance of the Zhenwu M890, its previous version, and features 216 GB of memory.
This launch took place during the Apsara 2026 conference, held in Hangzhou, China. Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba, stated that the V900 is currently the 'most powerful AI chip in China.' However, the company did not provide sufficient data to validate this claim or to conduct a performance comparison with its competitors' chips.
The Zhenwu V900 was designed to meet two primary demands of AI: model training and inference, which is the phase where a trained model executes the necessary calculations to produce responses. In addition to 216 GB of memory, the model offers a bandwidth of 1,200 GB/s in inter-chip communication; for comparison, the M890 has 144 GB of memory and 800 GB/s inter-chip communication.
The T-Head semiconductor division reported that more than a thousand units can operate together as a single system. On an even larger scale, Alibaba stated that the accelerator has the potential to integrate clusters containing up to 500,000 boards.
Mass production and commercial release of the device are scheduled for the first quarter of 2027. Despite the promises of great capacity, crucial information is still missing for a complete evaluation of the V900. Alibaba also omitted details on FLOPS performance, manufacturing method, the company responsible for component production, or its energy consumption, leaving the claim of being the most powerful chip in China as a statement from the manufacturer itself.
Additionally, this new accelerator integrates Alibaba's plans to develop larger AI models. The company plans to create a future Qwen with a scale of 5 to 10 trillion parameters, while the current Qwen3.8-Max has 2.4 trillion.
This model expansion aligns with the Chinese giant's projects aimed at increasing its computing infrastructure. Alibaba aims to exceed 20 gigawatts of capacity in its data centers by 2032. However, Wu mentioned that shortages in the global supply chain for AI data centers are restricting the speed of this expansion.