Jack Ma Muscles Into US-China AI Race

Ant Cuts AI Training Costs by 20%, Using Chinese-Made Chips

- BLOOMBERG

Jack Ma-backed Ant Group Co used Chinese-made semiconductors to develop techniques for training artificial intelligence (AI) models that would cut costs by 20 percent, according to people familiar with the matter.

Ant used domestic chips, including from affiliate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Huawei Technologies, to train models using the so-called Mixture of Experts machine learning approach, the people said. It got results similar to those from Nvidia Corp 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 Inc and Chinese chips for its latest models, one of the people said.