Great news for Chinese HBM (critical for AI), which has closed gap to merely 3 years behind leading Korean competitors.
The implications is US export controls has completely backfired and has actually invigorated a massive boom in key strategic areas in AI for China.
Alibaba is one of the biggest investors in CXMT and their T-Head Zhenwu roadmap announced a few weeks ago implies HBM3 is already being mass produced and HBM3e will be mass produced next year (they did not announce throughput but you can make some assumptions from the capacity).
The Zhenwu roadmap also matches the memory improvements of the Ascend roadmap, which indicates supply-chain level breakthroughs:
- Zhenwu M890 is already running in data centers and has 144 GB HBM (HBM3 level). The Ascend 950 DT is being mass produced right now and also has 144GB HBM-like memory.
- Zhenwu V900 is announced for 2027 Q3 will have 216 GB HBM (HBM3e level). The Ascend 960 announced for next year has 288GB.
I'm not sure of the credibility, but
also says Baidu Kunlunxin P800 (current year) uses HBM3 and their planned M300 chip next year will use HBM3e.
So there are many data points in the Chinese AI chip supply chain that all support this.