China Unicom launches massive AI data centre using homegrown chips from Alibaba

China Unicom has built a massive data centre powered by domestically developed artificial intelligence chips from Alibaba and other companies, state broadcaster CCTV said, as Beijing seeks to wean itself off foreign technologies.

The news comes as US officials voiced national security concerns at trade talks with China in Madrid this week, aiming to block shipments of chips and other advanced technology.

Amid the tension China has grown increasingly keen for domestic firms to switch to homegrown chips, warning them against use of those made by US giant Nvidia, on security grounds.

China Unicom's $390-million data centre, in Xining, the capital of the western province of Qinghai, will possess computing capacity of 20,000 petaflops when complete, the provincial government says on its website.

So far the centre has built 3,579 petaflops using nearly 23,000 domestically made AI chips, CCTV images showed on Tuesday.

Alibaba's chip unit T-Head supplied about 72% of the chips used, with the rest coming from companies such as MetaX, Biren Tech and Zhonghao Xinying, the broadcaster said.

The company plans to procure additional chips from Tecorigin (Wuxi), Moore Threads, and Enflame, CCTV said.

Alibaba's T-Head has also developed an AI chip called the PPU that features 96 gigabytes of memory and HBM2e, a type of vertically stacked DRAM chip specially designed for AI semiconductors.

That positions it as a close competitor to Nvidia's H20, the most advanced product the US company is currently permitted to sell to China, a comparative table in the broadcast showed.

China Unicom, Alibaba, Biren, MetaX, Enflame, Tecorigin and Zhonghao Xinying did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Moore Threads declined to comment.

On Monday, Beijing said a preliminary investigation of Nvidia found it had violated anti-monopoly laws.

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