Alibaba Signs Up First Major Customer For Its Chip as AI War Heats UpPlease note that we are not authorised to provide any investment advice. Alibaba has secured a major deal with state-owned telecom company China Unicom to supply artificial intelligence (AI) chips for a new data center. Of the nearly 23,000 domestically made AI chips currently powering the initial phase of the data center, Alibaba’s chip unit, T-Head, supplied approximately 72%. Alibaba Signs Up First Major Customer for Its AI ChipsAlibaba’s AI chip, developed by its T-Head unit, has been positioned as a direct competitor to Nvidia’s H20, a less powerful chip that the U.S. company is currently permitted to sell in China. For Alibaba, the deal with China Unicom is a significant validation of its long-term investment in chip research and development.