阿里巴巴成立獨立芯片公司 加速AI芯片佈局

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd announced last Wednesday it will establish a dedicated chip subsidiary that aims to create customized artificial intelligence chips and embedded processors to further support the tech giant's sprawling cloud and internet of things businesses.

阿里巴巴集團控股有限公司上週三宣佈，將成立一家專門的芯片子公司，旨在開發定製的人工智能芯片和嵌入式處理器，以進一步支持這家科技巨頭龐大的雲計算和物聯網業務。

The company plans to launch its first indigenous AI interference chip -- 'AliNPU' -- in the second half of 2019, Chief Technology Officer Zhang Jianfeng said at Alibaba's annual cloud computing conference in Hangzhou.

在杭州舉行的阿里巴巴年度雲計算會議上，阿里巴巴首席技術官張建鋒表示，該公司計劃在2019年下半年推出首款自主研發的人工智能干擾芯片“AliNPU”。

Zhang said the firm has embarked on developing its own quantum processors, and is looking to roll out a genuine quantum chip in two to three years.

張建鋒稱，該公司已經開始開發了自己的量子處理器，並希望在兩到三年內推出真正的量子芯片。

"We are confident that our advantages in algorithm, data intelligence, computing power and domain knowledge on the back of Alibaba's diverse ecosystem will put us in a unique position to lead real technology breakthroughs in disruptive areas, such as quantum and chip technology," he said at the conference.

他在會議上說道：“我們相信，我們在算法、數據智能、計算能力和領域知識方面的優勢，將使我們處於一個獨特的位置，引領量子和芯片技術等顛覆性領域的真正技術突破。”

The newly-formed entity is the merger of the chip team from DAMO Academy, Alibaba's in-house technology and science research arm, and microchip maker C-SKY Microsystems Co Ltd, which it acquired in April.

這個新成立的子公司，是由阿里巴巴內部科技研究機構阿里巴巴達摩院的芯片團隊，與4月份收購的微芯片製造商杭州中天微系統有限公司合併而成的。

The new company, which is likely to boast 200 to 300 researchers, aims to operate independently in the long run and becomes self-sufficient following initial financial input from Alibaba.

這家新公司可能會擁有200至300名研究人員，其目標是長期獨立運營，並在阿里巴巴最初投入資金後實現自給自足。