Chinese chip companies and artificial-intelligence developers are building up their arsenal of homegrown technology, backed by a government determined to win the AI race with the U.S. The latest example: China’s biggest cloud-computing company, Alibaba, has developed a new chip that is more versatile than its older chips. Alibaba was long one of the biggest customers of American AI-chip leader Nvidia. Now it and other chip designers are filling the void left after Nvidia ran into regulatory barriers to selling its products in China. Industry insiders say China remains far from being able to make chips that can rival the most advanced American products, which Washington bars China from importing. Chinese factories are hobbled by U.S. restrictions on access to cutting-edge chip-making technology. Still, companies are coming up with substitutes for Nvidia’s H20 chip, the most powerful AI processor it is allowed to sell in China.

Full exclusive : Alibaba develops a new AI chip that is more versatile and advanced, hopes to fill the drop in supply of H20 chips by Nvidia.