Alibaba, Baidu’s IPO plans for AI chip design units heighten China’s self-reliance drive

The plans of Alibaba Group Holding and Baidu to list their semiconductor design units could intensify competition with other domestic artificial intelligence chip developers to unseat Nvidia as the country’s top supplier of high-performance AI processors, according to analysts. The two Chinese internet peers’ initiatives reflected the strong investor appetite for AI chip firms and growing demand for alternative computing resources in the domestic AI sector, as Beijing pushed for greater...