ADاشتہار / AdvertisementGoogle Ad
Alibaba’s T-Head Chip Unit Cleared for Hong Kong ListingBusiness
Alibaba has won the Hong Kong exchange’s go-ahead to spin off its T-Head chip unit, clearing the way for a separate listing of its AI processor business.
Share:
Alibaba Group has taken a major step towards listing its chip-design business on the Hong Kong stock exchange, after the exchange gave the Chinese technology giant permission to spin off the unit. The company said on Tuesday that the Hong Kong Stock Exchange had allowed it to proceed with the proposed spin-off and separate listing of T-Head Semiconductor, its in-house chip arm. T-Head had already filed its listing application confidentially on 11 September, seeking to sell H shares on the exchange’s Main Board.
T-Head designs the processors that power Alibaba’s cloud and artificial intelligence services. In September it unveiled its flagship Zhenwu V900 AI processor, which the company says delivers three times the performance of its predecessor, the Zhenwu M890, and is due to enter mass production in the first quarter of 2027. According to Alibaba, the chips already serve more than 650 customers across industries from carmaking and finance to large language model development.
ADاشتہار / AdvertisementGoogle Ad
Listing still needs more approvals
The listing is far from a done deal. It still needs approval from the exchange’s Listing Committee and a filing with China’s securities regulator, and Alibaba has said there is no assurance the spin-off will take place, or when it might. The company has not disclosed how large the share sale would be, what valuation it is seeking, or how much of T-Head it would keep. The International Financing Review has reported the sale could raise between 2 billion and 3 billion dollars.
Alibaba’s existing shareholders will not automatically receive shares in the spun-off business. The exchange waived the rule that normally gives a parent company’s shareholders an assured entitlement to shares in a spin-off, and Alibaba said T-Head would remain its subsidiary after any listing.
The move comes as Chinese technology companies race to build domestic chip capacity while Washington restricts their access to advanced foreign processors. Alibaba is not alone in seeking a public market for its chip business: Baidu has delayed the planned listing of its own AI chip unit, Kunlunxin, as regulators tighten their oversight of technology listings. For Alibaba, a separate listing would put a public value on a business that sits at the heart of China’s AI ambitions, and give it a way to raise money for the costly business of designing advanced chips.
Related Coverage
