[News] Alibaba’s T-Head Reportedly Hits 470K Chip Shipments, Expands Amid Unclear IPO Timeline
With NVIDIA’s H200 now approved for the Chinese market, Alibaba has reportedly, for the first time, revealed progress on its self-developed T-Head GPUs in its latest earnings report. According to EE Times China, the chips have reached large-scale production, with 470,000 units delivered as of February 2026 and annualized revenue exceeding RMB 10 billion.
Chinastarmarket.cn, citing Alibaba CEO Wu Yongming, reports that the company’s production capacity for high-quality AI chips is set to expand further through 2026 and 2027. Notably, T-Head is seeing strong demand from external clients, with EE Times suggesting that over 60% of its chips are deployed for commercial customers.
T-Head, Alibaba’s chip unit, is making headlines lately indeed. EE Times China reports that its Zhenwu 810E GPU, now listed on T-Head’s official website, boasts a fully in-house hardware and software stack and delivers performance comparable to NVIDIA’s H20, surpassing the A800 and other mainstream domestic GPUs.
Meanwhile, as IT Home previously reported, Alibaba Cloud announced on March 18 that starting April 18, pricing for Zhenwu 810E compute services will increase by 5%–34%, driven by a global surge in AI demand and rising supply chain costs.
Alibaba’s in-house chip efforts through T-Head carry clear strategic weight. Citing EE Times China, Wu noted that global AI compute will remain in severe shortage over the next three to five years—positioning Alibaba, the only cloud provider in China with proprietary chip capabilities, to gain a crucial edge.
T-Head’s Strategic Role Grows Amid AI Compute Shortage
However, addressing market speculation about a potential spin-off, Wu noted that an IPO for T-Head is not ruled out in the future, but there is currently no set timeline.
Founded in September 2018, T-Head is Alibaba Group’s wholly owned semiconductor business, offering a full-stack product lineup spanning edge and cloud, EE Times China reports. Performance data cited by the report shows Alibaba Cloud’s revenue grew 36% this quarter, with AI-related products achieving triple-digit year-on-year growth for the tenth consecutive quarter.
Alibaba is not alone among Chinese cloud giants in exploring chip unit listings. The Paper previously reported that Baidu is also advancing plans to spin off its Kunlunxin chip unit. According to the report, on January 2, Baidu disclosed that Kunlunxin had confidentially submitted an A1 filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 1, seeking approval for a main board IPO.
(Photo credit: T-Head)
Read more
- [News] Alibaba T-Head Unveils New AI Chip Said to Match NVIDIA H20 as IPO Speculation Builds
- [News] Baidu Reportedly Explores Kunlunxin Spinoff and Listing Amid a Surge in China Chip IPOs
