Jack Ma-Backed Ant Touts AI Breakthrough Using Chinese Chips

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Jack Ma-backed Ant Group used Chinese-made semiconductors to develop techniques for training AI models that would cut costs by 20%, according to people familiar with the matter. Ant used domestic chips, including from affiliate Alibaba and Huawei, to train models using the so-called Mixture of Experts machine learning approach, the people said. It got results similar to those from Nvidia chips like the H800, they said, asking not to be named as the information isn't public. Hangzhou-based Ant is still using Nvidia for AI development but is now relying mostly on alternatives including from Advanced Micro Devices and Chinese chips for its latest models, one of the people said.

The models mark Ant's entry into a race between Chinese and US companies that's accelerated since DeepSeek demonstrated how capable models can be trained for far less than the billions invested by OpenAI and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. It underscores how Chinese companies are trying to use local alternatives to the most advanced Nvidia semiconductors. While not the most advanced, the H800 is a relatively powerful processor and currently barred by the US from China. The company published a research paper this month that claimed its models at times outperformed Meta Platforms Inc. in certain benchmarks, which Bloomberg News hasn't independently verified. But if they work as advertised, Ant's platforms could mark another step forward for Chinese artificial intelligence development by slashing the cost of inferencing or supporting AI services.

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