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Partnership

Alibaba T-Head x China Unicom

Alibaba signed a contract with China Unicom, China's No. 2 wireless carrier, to deploy T-Head (Pingtouge) AI accelerators in a major data center project. This marks T-Head's first major external enterprise deployment outside the Alibaba Cloud ecosystem.

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Track Alibaba T-Head x China Unicom

Machine-readable surfaces

1fb8df9d-1573-4174-9da9-f2710ead31cb
Type
deployment
Status
Activeoperating
Announced
2025-09-17
11 months ago
Start
2025-09-17
11 months ago
Active for
11 months

Who’s involved

Alibaba T-Headtechnology provider

T-Head Semiconductor (平头哥半导体, also known as Pingtouge) is Alibaba Group's wholly-owned chip design subsidiary, founded in September 2018 and headquartered in [Hangzhou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangzhou), China. Spun out of Alibaba's DAMO Academy, T-Head develops the full chip design stack — from RISC-V processors ([XuanTie series](/models/zhenwu-810e)) to AI inference accelerators (Hanguang 800), server CPUs (Yitian 710), and GPU-class AI chips (Zhenwu/PPU line) — primarily serving [Alibaba Cloud](https://www.alibabacloud.com/) and external customers like China Unicom. T-Head's Zhenwu M890, positioned as a domestic alternative to NVIDIA's H100, achieved scaled mass production in 2026, and Alibaba is preparing an IPO for the unit.

HQHangzhou, Zhejiang, Chinat-head.cn1 partnerships

Off-registry parties

  • China Unicom · customer

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Sources (1)

  1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-17/alibaba-s-ai-chip-effort-quickens-with-big-client-china-unicom

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