[News] Alibaba’s Ant Group, ByteDance Back InnoStar, Boosting China’s Memory Chip Drive

According to STAR Market Daily, major Chinese tech companies are actively investing in the semiconductor sector, with one of the latest cases involving a local memory chipmaker. Sources indicate that Ant Group’s subsidiary, Shanghai Yunya Enterprise Management Consulting, has acquired a 1.87% stake in InnoStar Semiconductor, a rising memory tech player in China. The report adds that Ant Group is an affiliate of the Chinese conglomerate Alibaba Group.

In addition to Alibaba, TikTok owner ByteDance also invested in InnoStar in 2024, as highlighted by South China Morning Post. The report notes that through its affiliates, Picoheart and Beijing Weilai Yinji Technology, ByteDance acquired a combined 13.2% stake. A ByteDance representative said the investment was intended to use InnoStar’s memory chips in Pico’s VR headsets, the report adds.

These investments reflect Chinese Big Tech’s broader push to adopt domestic chips amid U.S. tech restrictions, according to South China Morning Post. The report also notes that Ant Group’s investment follows disclosure that it had reportedly trained large language models on Chinese-designed AI chips, reducing reliance on NVIDIA GPUs and cutting training costs by 20 percent.

InnoStar: China’s Emerging Next-Gen Memory Maker

InnoStar, a Shanghai-based memory manufacturer, is regarded as China’s domestic leader in developing and producing resistive random access memory (ReRAM) chips, which are said to offer lower power consumption and faster data retention, according to South China Morning Post.

In the first half of 2022, InnoStar announced the completion of China’s first 28/22nm ReRAM 12-inch pilot line and its entry into mass production. An InnoStar representative stated that the company is the second firm, after TSMC, to achieve ReRAM mass production on the 28nm/22nm process, STAR Market Daily reported.

Alibaba’s Chip Strategy and Hardware Development 

As STAR Market Daily points out, before investing in InnoStar, Alibaba had already made significant investments in semiconductor firms, including Cambricon, Barefoot Networks, and ASR Microelectronics, several of which were later successfully listed.

Meanwhile, according to Wall Street Journal, sources say Alibaba has introduced a new AI chip, described as more versatile than its predecessors and intended fill the gap created after NVIDIA faced regulatory hurdles in selling to China.

Ant Group, Alibaba’s affiliate, has also advanced its own chip efforts. In April, Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics Group announced it was co-developing a chip with Ant Group, scheduled for mass production in the second half of 2025. The chip is designed to support Alipay’s tap-and-pay function, as South China Morning Post indicates.

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(Photo credit: Alibaba)