[DigitalToday reporter Jae-won Choi (최재원)] China’s largest e-commerce company Alibaba is pushing ahead with a Hong Kong stock market listing of its chip design unit T-Head. The initial public offering is expected to reassess the value of its semiconductor business, which has been overshadowed by Alibaba’s cloud business, and serve as a test of competitiveness in China’s AI semiconductor industry.
On Nov. 11 (local time), the South China Morning Post reported that Alibaba formalised plans to spin off and list T-Head through a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange the previous day. T-Head submitted a listing application confidentially on Sept. 11. The exchange has allowed the spin-off process to proceed, but final listing approval and a detailed offering timetable have not been set.
The core of the listing is a reassessment of corporate value. China financial information firm Wind analysed that because T-Head sits inside Alibaba Cloud, it has been difficult to estimate its standalone value, and that after listing it could become a new yardstick for judging whether Alibaba is undervalued.
T-Head is reported to be seeking to raise $2 billion to $3 billion through the IPO. The figure is an expected size discussed in the market, and not an amount officially finalised by Alibaba. Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares fell about 1 percent on the day to end at HK$100.60.
Founded in 2018, T-Head is responsible for Alibaba’s in-house chip development. Its strategic value has risen as U.S. restrictions on exports of advanced chips have made it more important for Chinese companies to reduce reliance on Nvidia.
The market is focusing on commercialisation of the next-generation AI accelerator Genwu V900. The V900, unveiled in September, has three times the computing performance of the existing M890, Alibaba said.
It can be used to build a large-scale computing cluster connecting up to 500,000 chips, and was designed for use in AI model training and inference. Mass production and commercial launch are targeted for the first quarter of 2027.
Alibaba plans to support T-Head’s independent fundraising and customer acquisition through the spin-off listing. It plans to maintain management control even after the listing.
Still, the V900’s actual competitiveness and commercialisation results need further verification. Whether the listing succeeds also depends on regulatory approval and market conditions.
