China e-commerce giant Alibaba has disclosed plans to set up a new semiconductor company to focus on customized AI chips and embedded processors to support Alibaba’s growing cloud and IoT businesses, according to media reports from China.
At the Computing Conference held in Alibaba, Alibaba officially announced the establishment of Ping Tou Ge Semiconductor Co., Ltd., the company is a chip company integrated by C-Sky and AI ibaba’s DAMO chip R&D team. In the early stage, C-Sky is an embedded CPU IP company that Alibaba acquired in April. Alibaba Group will give sufficient investment and support, and after several years of operation, it will become profitable and eventually grow into a self-financing enterprise.
C-Sky is the only company in mainland China that mass-produces its own embedded CPU IP Core chip, mainly for the Internet of Things applications, such as multimedia, security, home appliance, transportation, and smart cities. The chip R&D team formed by Alibaba DAMO Academy has started the independent research and development of Al chip earlier. The chip will be used in Al inference calculation such as image and video analysis and machine learning. Jeff Zhang, CTO of Alibaba, said: “Ping Tou Ge Semiconductor will release the first neural network chip in April next year.”
Alibaba Executive Chairman Jack Ma has been vocal about addressing China’s heavy reliance on foreign-made chips.
“The market for chips is controlled by America … and suddenly if they stop selling, what that means, you understand,” Ma told university students in Tokyo in April. “That’s why China, Japan and any country — you need core technologies.”
According to Alibaba, the company’s Chinese name “Ping Tou Ge Semiconductor Co., Ltd.” was decided by Jack Ma, “Ping Tou Ge” is the nickname of Mellovora capensis in China. The company’s name, Pingtouge Semiconductor Company, references a Chinese nickname for the honey badger.
The honey badger became internet famous after a video with cheeky narration showed it persevering in the face of extreme adversity.
