Alibaba Stock Jumps After Unveiling New Zhenwu V900 AI Chip and Cloud Expansion

Aditya Raghunath5 minute read
Reviewed by: David Hanson
Last updated Sep 23, 2026

@Zulqarnain's Images via Canva, @SUMALI IBNU CHAMID from Alemedia.id via Canva

Key Stats for Alibaba Stock

  • Price change for Alibaba stock in last 1 year: -29%
  • $BABA Stock Price as of Sep. 22: $115
  • 52-Week High: $193
  • $BABA Stock Price Target: $186

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What Happened?

Alibaba (BABA) stock rose about 3% in Hong Kong on Tuesday after the company unveiled a new AI chip and big plans to expand its data centers.

The news came at Alibaba Cloud’s annual Apsara Conference in Hangzhou, and it’s a clear signal that the company is doubling down on the infrastructure behind the AI boom.

The star of the show was the Zhenwu V900, Alibaba’s next-generation AI chip.

The company says it delivers three times the performance of its predecessor, the Zhenwu M890, which launched in May.

That’s a fast pace of improvement, and it shows Alibaba is pushing hard to keep up in the chip race.

Alongside the new chip, Alibaba laid out a much bigger goal.

It plans to grow Alibaba Cloud’s global data center capacity to more than 20 gigawatts by 2032.

This is part of a wider roadmap that covers chips, cloud infrastructure, and AI models together, not just one piece of the puzzle.

This move fits a global pattern. Western tech giants are also racing to build out AI infrastructure.

  • Nvidia recently said it would work with Australian partners on up to 2 gigawatts of AI infrastructure by 2027.
  • Meta, meanwhile, announced its first Canadian data center in July, a 1-gigawatt facility in Alberta that could cost around $9 billion and take up to three years to build.

Alibaba’s new Zhenwu chip won’t hit mass production until the Q1 of 2027. But the current generation of Zhenwu chips is already in use.

More than 650 customers across autos, finance, energy, and manufacturing are using them today.

BABA Stock Revenue, EBIT and Free Cash Flow Estimates in Billion USD (TIKR)

On the AI model side, Alibaba said its next model, Qwen 4, is currently in training.

Future versions, Qwen 4.5 and Qwen 5, are already in the planning stage.

CEO Eddie Wu compared this moment in AI to the early days of electrification, saying machine thinking still has an “enormous growth runway.”

He added that AI coding is just “the light bulb of the machine intelligence era.”

Competition at home is heating up too. Chinese rival Huawei unveiled its own new AI infrastructure last week, saying it can scale up to one million processors.

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What the Market Is Telling Us About Alibaba Stock

The market’s reaction shows investors like what they’re seeing from Alibaba on AI infrastructure.

Alibaba stock moved higher not because of a single product, but because the company laid out a long-term plan spanning chips, data centers, and models all at once.

BABA Stock Valuation Model (TIKR)

This announcement also lines up with Alibaba’s recent momentum.

In its most recent quarter, Alibaba Cloud’s external revenue grew 45% year over year, and AI-related product revenue maintained triple-digit growth for a 12th straight quarter.

Against that backdrop, Alibaba stock’s reaction to the Zhenwu V900 and the data center expansion suggests investors believe the company can keep that growth going.

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Disclaimer:

Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!

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