Alibaba Unveils Customized ARM-Based totally Server Chip for Cloud Information Centres
Chinese language tech large Alibaba mentioned on Tuesday it has advanced a processor that can be used to energy servers in its information centres. The advance marks the most recent foray into semiconductors for the corporate, mirroring strikes from different international cloud computing gamers whilst additionally dovetailing with Chinese language govt’s priorities to spice up the country’s chip sector.
Advanced via Alibaba’s in-house semiconductor unit T-Head, the chip — the Yitian 710 — is in response to structure from UK-based Arm, and is probably not to be had for business use out of doors of Alibaba.
Alibaba is the biggest cloud computing supplier in China via marketplace proportion and the third-largest globally, in step with analysis company Gartner.
Its competitors within the sector have additionally launched server chips of their very own. Huawei and Amazon depend on their respective Kunpeng and Graviton chips to energy their cloud computing infrastructure.
Alibaba additionally mentioned it has a advanced proprietary line of servers, referred to as Panjiu, and added that it’ll make the supply code for its Xuantie sequence of IP cores — in response to the RISC-V open supply structure — to be had to the general public. Alibaba unveiled the Xuantie in 2019.
China’s govt has lengthy recommended business to spend money on the home chip sector, which stays in the back of that of worldwide opposite numbers.
The rustic stays reliant on in another country firms for far of its complex semiconductors, a vulnerability introduced forth when US sanctions in opposition to Huawei crippled that corporate’s booming smartphone trade.
Along with Alibaba, seek large Baidu, telephone maker Xiaomi, and quite a few Chinese language automobile and equipment firms have begun making an investment in chips.
© Thomson Reuters 2021
