Alibaba has announced plans for new data centres in Europe, alongside a more powerful AI chip and plans for much larger Qwen models at its annual flagship.
Alibaba is expanding its overseas data centres to Europe, the Chinese tech giant announced Wednesday at its annual conference.
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The company said it would "establish its first cloud regions" in Finland, the Netherlands and Turkey, while expanding its data centre footprint in Germany, France, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Hong Kong over the next 12 months.
“Today, the total volume of Machine Thinking is less than 3% of all Human Thinking,” said Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba Group.
He suggested machine thinking could eventually grow to 1,000 times human capacity.
“With this in mind, our target is that by 2032, the global data centre capacity operated by Alibaba Cloud will surpass 20GW, fueling the industry’s exponentially rising demand for AI,” Wu said.
The expansion will further increase Alibaba Cloud's global computing capacity, the company said in an announcement.
Alibaba is one of the frontrunners in China's artificial intelligence (AI) industry, with its Qwen models among the world's most downloaded AI models.
Wu said on Tuesday that it will further expand its AI’s capacity with five to ten trillion parameters, which would make it several times bigger than the current largest Chinese model.
China’s push for homegrown AI chips amid US restrictions
The Chinese tech giant also unveiled a new AI chip at the conference, which Wu called “the most powerful AI chip in China today”.
Alibaba’s new Zhenwu V900 chip, widely believed to be twice as powerful as Nvidia’s H20 designed for China, comes amid US efforts to curb China’s AI progress.
Washington’s longstanding export controls have restricted access to advanced chips, prompting Beijing to urge Chinese companies to use domestic alternatives.
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are due to meet in Washington this week, with trade tensions, chip restrictions and AI threats to national security expected to feature in their talks.
