BEIJING, March 24, 2026 (Reuters): Alibaba on Tuesday revealed its next-generation XuanTie C950 5-nanometer processor at an internal conference, the company said in a blog post, as the Chinese tech giant gears up for the shift towards agentic AI.
- The 3.2 GHz server chip, built using open-source RISC-V chip architecture, was billed as “the highest performing RISC-V CPU in the world” at a conference hosted by DAMO Academy, Alibaba’s research arm, according to Chinese media reports.
- The chip performs more than three times faster than its predecessor, the XuanTie C920, the reports said.
- The company did not reveal which fab manufactured the chip.
- “RISC-V’s open-standard nature allows chip designers to customize instruction sets and accelerate specific AI workloads with no or low licensing fees. This is particularly important for the development of AI agents,” the blog post said.
- Alibaba is accelerating in-house chip development through its T-Head semiconductor arm, primarily focusing on the Zhenwu 810E chip series for AI training and inference, while the XuanTie series is focused on high-performance cloud systems and agentic AI.
- The move comes after Alibaba last week launched its enterprise platform optimised for AI agent workflows, as companies and institutions throughout China.
- Its international equivalent, Accio Work, was launched on Monday. The agentic AI platform says it can autonomously run complex business operations for small and medium-sized enterprises.
- The firm reorganised some of its AI-focused teams under the newly created Alibaba Token Hub earlier this month, which focuses on building AI work platforms for enterprises.
- The business strategy shift comes as Alibaba finds new ways to ensure profitability as Chinese AI models’ token prices have dropped dramatically amid fierce domestic competition.