Tired of ads? Enjoy an ad-free experience by signing up.
👩‍🍳 How we use AI at Tech in Asia, thoughtfully and responsibly.
🧔‍♂️ A friendly human may check it before it goes live. More news here

Ant Group cuts AI costs by 20% with Chinese chips

Ant Group has developed AI models using Chinese-made chips from Alibaba and Huawei, alongside AMD alternatives, cutting costs by about 20%.

While still using some Nvidia chips, the company aims to reduce reliance on high-performance GPUs like Nvidia’s H800, which face US export restrictions.

Its AI models, based on the Mixture of Experts (MoE) technique, reportedly achieve results similar to Nvidia hardware, though independent verification is lacking.

Ant’s research highlights its Ling-Plus and Ling-Lite models, which outperformed Meta’s Llama in English benchmarks and DeepSeek in Chinese tests. Open source, Ling-Plus has 290 billion parameters, while Ling-Lite has 16.8 billion.

The company estimates training one trillion tokens with its optimized approach costs 5.1 million yuan (US$880,000), significantly less than traditional high-performance hardware.

Despite progress, its research notes challenges in model training, including stability issues from hardware or structural adjustments.

Recent Ant Group developments

Timeline
19-Feb-2025 🤖 Ant Group opens new hires for humanoid robots
  • Ant Group hires for embodied AI roles
  • New subsidiary aims to enhance robotics tech
06-Feb-2025 👔 Ant Group names Alibaba veteran as new CFO
  • Liu Zheng appointed as new CFO of Ant Group
  • Former CFO Cyril Han becomes CEO on March 1
11-Jan-2025 🏥 Ant Group to connect 280k doctors on Haodf healthcare platform
  • Ant Group links 280,000 doctors to 800M users
  • Introduces AI assistant for efficient patient management
24-Dec-2024 🔄 Ant Group restructures with new business groups
  • Ant Group restructures with new business groups
  • Han Xinyi confirmed as CEO starting March 2025

Stay ahead in Asia’s tech landscape

You've reached your 2 free content limit for the month. Sign up for free to read the full story.

🏄 For casual readers / 👶 Free

Basic

US$0

Free forever

Get instant access to this article and more every month

0 premium content

Unlimited news briefs

5

5 articles

Ad-free reading experience

Just US$0 per day

⌛Sign up in 20s. No payment details needed.

📖 For learners / 👍 Starter

Lite

US$4.92/month

Billed annually at US$59/year

Get instant access to this article and more every month

4

4 premium content

Unlimited news briefs & articles

Ad-free reading experience

Just US$0.17 per day

Cancel anytime

Our subscriber community includes professionals from these companies:

Stay updated on the go with our mobile app.

Get latest insights with smoother, more personalized experience through TIA mobile app.