Alibaba Takes Aim at Nvidia With V900 AI Chip as AI Tokens Rise 

Alibaba unveiled its Zhenwu V900 AI accelerator at the Apsara Conference in Hangzhou on September 22, saying the chip delivers three times the computing performance of its predecessor and can scale into clusters of up to 500,000 accelerators.

The announcement is part of a broader AI infrastructure push that includes plans to expand Alibaba Cloud's data-center capacity beyond 20 gigawatts by 2032 and develop AI models with 5 trillion to 10 trillion parameters.

Alibaba shares rose 5.1% in Hong Kong to a one-month high on Tuesday following the announcement.

Nvidia, meanwhile, did not fall with the arrival of a new Chinese AI accelerator. NVDA had closed at $227.38 on September 21.

The sharper move came across AI-linked crypto tokens. Bittensor’s TAO traded around $323.98 by midday in Europe, while FET gained about 10% to $0.21.

NEAR rose about 5.5% to $4.54, and RENDER gained roughly 2.7% to $1.84, according to CoinGecko data.

Alibaba is increasing the amount of computing infrastructure it intends to deploy, while projects such as Bittensor, the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance and Near are positioned around AI-related networks, applications or infrastructure. That creates a broader market narrative in which demand for AI computation remains a major theme.

However, Alibaba's 20 GW target does not necessarily mean that capacity will directly flow into decentralized AI networks or DePIN projects. The company's stated strategy is centered on its own cloud infrastructure, chips and AI models.

For crypto portfolios, the more relevant signal is therefore that AI infrastructure remains a major area of technology investment.

Alibaba’s V900 adds a new challenger to the race for AI computing power, but it is too early to say the chip can compete directly with Nvidia’s latest processors.

Alibaba describes the V900 as China's most powerful AI chip and says it triples the performance of the M890. Mass production is planned for Q1 2027.

That distinction matters. A threefold improvement versus Alibaba's previous chip is not the same measurement as outperforming Nvidia's latest accelerators. 

Nvidia remains the largest supplier of AI accelerators in China. Nvidia shipped about 2.2 million AI accelerator cards in China in 2025, giving it a 55% share of the market, according to Reuters. Chinese vendors accounted for 41%, with Huawei at about 20% and Alibaba’s T-Head at roughly 7%.

However, Nvidia’s Chinese market share fell by 35% relative to its 2024 share.

Alibaba’s V900 launch comes as China works to expand domestic AI-chip capacity amid U.S. export restrictions. The company is investing across chips, cloud infrastructure and AI models as it seeks alternatives to foreign processors.

While the V900 is therefore a new benchmark for China’s AI-chip ambitions, the key test will be whether Alibaba can turn its V900 plans and 20 GW infrastructure target into commercially deployed capacity at scale.

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