Jack Ma’s Ant Group flags AI breakthrough on China-built chips- Bloomberg

Investing.com-- Jack Ma-backed Ant Group used Chinese-made semiconductors to develop less costly techniques to train artificial intelligence models, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

The techniques could be used to cut training costs by as much as 20%, and were developed using domestically-sourced chips, including those from Ant affiliate Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) and Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies, the Bloomberg report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Ant achieved results similar to those seen with NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) chips such as the H800. While Ant is still using Nvidia AI chips for development, it is increasingly exploring alternatives from Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) and from Chinese manufacturers. 

Ant’s reported breakthrough reflects a growing push among Chinese AI firms to adopt domestic chip sources, especially after the country was blocked from access to advanced AI technology developed in the U.S.

The Biden administration had introduced a host of strict curbs on chip shipments to China, prohibiting majors such as Nvidia from selling its most advanced chips in the country.

While the restrictions were expected to severely crimp China’s AI efforts, this notion was dispelled with the release of DeepSeek R1 in late-January. The AI model appeared to be able to match the performance of rivals such as OpenAI’s Chat GPT while using older hardware and a fraction of its budget. 

DeepSeek’s release sparked similar, updated offerings from several Chinese internet majors such as Alibaba, Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU), and Tencent, while also highlighting China’s AI potential.

This trend had also sparked an extended rally in Chinese equities so far in 2025.