TL;DR: Alibaba said on Sept. 22, 2026 that it will train future Qwen models at 5 trillion to 10 trillion parameters, unveiled the Zhenwu V900 AI chip for mass production in Q1 2027, and set a 20-gigawatt data-center target for 2032.
What Alibaba announced in Hangzhou
Alibaba Group used Alibaba Cloud's annual Apsara conference in Hangzhou on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026, to outline work across foundation models, semiconductors and data centers needed to train and deploy larger AI systems, according to Reuters in "Alibaba deepens AI push with new chip, bigger model; shares jump 5% | Reuters."
The company said it was developing an AI model up to four times larger than its flagship model and unveiled a next-generation AI chip it described as China's most powerful, according to that Reuters reporting.
The announcements underscore a push to build every layer of its AI business, from models and chips to the data-center capacity used for training and inference, according to the same Reuters account.
Chief Executive Eddie Wu said customer demand for AI was "exceptionally robust" and was accelerating Alibaba Cloud's revenue growth, though supply-chain constraints limit the pace of expansion, according to Reuters.
Wu said Alibaba Cloud would begin bringing its AI supernodes online at commercial scale this quarter, according to Reuters.
New model plan: 5 trillion to 10 trillion parameters
Wu said Alibaba's Qwen team plans to train a new model with 5 trillion to 10 trillion parameters to tackle "more complex, longer-horizon tasks" as it pursues artificial superintelligence, or AI that surpasses human capabilities, according to Reuters.
Alibaba's current flagship, Qwen 3.8 Max, has 2.4 trillion parameters, which are a rough measure of an AI model's size and capability, according to Reuters.
In a separate statement, Alibaba said it is currently training its next-generation model, Qwen 4, with future Qwen 4.5 and Qwen 5 models expected to scale up to 5 trillion to 10 trillion parameters, according to Reuters.
CNBC, in "Alibaba shares jump as new AI chip, data center buildout plans unveiled," also reported that the next-generation Qwen 4 model is currently in training and that Alibaba outlined plans for future Qwen 4.5 and Qwen 5 model series.
The Qwen team had made "meaningful" progress in getting models to improve themselves by identifying weaknesses, doing experiments and generating training data with limited human involvement, Wu said, according to Reuters.
The Associated Press, as carried by NBC News in "Alibaba unveils what it calls China’s most powerful chip and ambitious AI model plans," described parameters as a measure of an AI's learning capacity and said the planned 5-trillion-to-10-trillion-parameter scale would bring Alibaba closer to the most advanced models from the U.S.
That Associated Press reporting noted that Alibaba's latest Qwen3.8-Max model, the most powerful of its Qwen AI series models, has 2.4 trillion parameters.
The same Associated Press account noted that Chinese AI company Moonshot says its Kimi K3, released in July, is the world's largest open model with 2.8 trillion parameters.
Zhenwu V900: three times predecessor performance
Alibaba also unveiled the Zhenwu V900, a new AI chip developed by its T-Head semiconductor unit, according to Reuters.
Wu said the processor delivers three times the performance of its predecessor, the M890, and can be linked in clusters of up to 500,000 chips to train and run the largest AI models, according to Reuters.
CNBC reported the same performance comparison, saying the Zhenwu V900 delivers three times the performance of its predecessor, the Zhenwu M890 released in May.
Alibaba launched the previous-generation M890 chip in May, according to Reuters.
The chip is set for mass production and commercial release in the first quarter of 2027, and Wu said the company expected "significant growth" in annual AI chip shipments, according to Reuters.
CNBC likewise reported that Alibaba's new Zhenwu AI chip is scheduled for mass production and commercial release in the first quarter of 2027.
Existing Zhenwu chips are already used by more than 650 customers across industries including automotive, finance, energy and manufacturing, according to CNBC.
The Associated Press reported that CEO Eddie Wu called the new Zhenwu V900 chip the "most powerful AI chip in China today" and said it can deliver three times the performance of the company's previous-generation Zhenwu M890 chip.
Such chips power frontier AI model training and "inference," a term for the calculations a trained AI uses to deliver responses to users, according to that Associated Press reporting.
Alibaba's Zhenwu chips are used in its data centers, providing computing to the company and its cloud clients, according to the Associated Press.
Data-center target: more than 20 gigawatts by 2032
Wu also set a target for Alibaba Cloud's global data-center capacity to surpass 20 gigawatts by 2032, according to Reuters.
CNBC reported that Alibaba aims to operate more than 20 gigawatts of global data-center capacity by 2032 as part of a broader roadmap spanning chips, cloud infrastructure and AI models.
The company announced plans to expand Alibaba Cloud's global data-center capacity to more than 20 gigawatts by 2032, according to CNBC.
The Associated Press also reported that Alibaba expects to have over 20 gigawatts' worth of computing by 2032, citing "exponentially" rising demand for AI computing.
Alibaba is "mobilizing every resource" to meet customers' demand for AI, Wu said in his speech Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
Global shortages across the AI data-center supply chain, for example, "are currently limiting the speed at which we can scale our compute infrastructure" for AI, Wu added, according to the Associated Press.
"The industry's mid-to-long-term demand far outpaces our supply capabilities," Wu said, according to Reuters.
Shares rise in Hong Kong
Alibaba's Hong Kong-listed shares surged 5.1% on Tuesday to their highest in a month, according to Reuters.
CNBC reported that shares of Alibaba jumped around 3% in Hong Kong on Tuesday after the unveiling and data-center plans.
The launch comes as Chinese technology companies race to develop domestic alternatives to Nvidia's AI processors amid tightening U.S. export curbs, according to Reuters.
Frontier AI model training in China often relies on Nvidia chips, analysts said, but Chinese-designed chips are gaining ground as Nvidia has been blocked from selling some of its most powerful AI chips to China, according to the Associated Press.
How the move fits wider AI infrastructure race
The announcements underscore Alibaba's growing push into the machinery behind the AI boom, amid a flurry of AI infrastructure investments by its Western tech peers as the race for computing power intensifies, according to CNBC.
Earlier this month, Nvidia outlined plans to work with Australian partners to support up to 2 gigawatts of AI infrastructure in the country by 2027, while Meta in July unveiled plans for its first data center in Canada, a 1-gigawatt facility in Alberta expected to cost about $9 billion and take up to three years to complete, according to CNBC.
Alibaba's domestic peer Huawei also unveiled new AI infrastructure last week that it said can scale to as many as one million processors, according to CNBC.
Huawei last week also unveiled new chip technologies as it looks to challenge global leaders like Nvidia, according to the Associated Press.
SpaceX has approximately 1.4 gigawatts of AI computing capacity as of the middle of this year and says it aims to reach over 10 gigawatts in 2027, according to the Associated Press.
Recent Chinese advancements in AI are giving Beijing more leverage in its upcoming talks with Washington, some analysts believe, as China steps up its self-reliance push even as U.S.-led export restrictions have barred it from accessing some of the world's most cutting-edge technologies, including AI chips and chipmaking machines, according to the Associated Press.
Open Chinese models, which are often more affordable than cutting-edge closed models from leading U.S. AI labs, have also been making inroads globally, including in the U.S., according to the Associated Press.
"Using extra computing power to make up for chip limits helps China stay strong locally," said Neil Shah, vice president of Counterpoint Research, a technology market research firm based in Hong Kong, according to the Associated Press.
Counterpoint senior analyst Parv Sharma added that how much the AI and chipmaking gap between China and the U.S. narrows will also depend on other factors including China's ability to advance chip foundries that manufacture them, not just chip design capabilities, according to the Associated Press.
What Wu said about machine intelligence
"The truly groundbreaking products of the Machine Intelligence era have not yet arrived," Chief Executive Eddie Wu said, hailing the dawn of an era comparable to the Industrial Revolution, according to Reuters.
He predicted machines would eventually produce more than 1,000 times the "thinking" of all humanity, up from less than 3% today, according to Reuters.
Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba Group, said machine thinking still had an "enormous growth runway," comparing today's AI development with the early stages of electrification, according to CNBC.
Wu added that "AI coding is simply the light bulb of the machine intelligence era," according to CNBC.
He likened AI coding to the light bulb of the electrical age — an early application rather than the breakthrough product, according to Reuters.
While "machine intelligence today is not a substitute for human intelligence," he predicted that, eventually, machines will be able to produce over 1,000 times more "thinking" than all of humanity combined, up from less than 3% currently, according to the Associated Press.
Wu also likened AI growth to the industrial revolution and said "machine intelligence" will rapidly outgrow human thinking capacity, according to the Associated Press.