Another major news has emerged in China's semiconductor circle: Alibaba's "monk who sweeps the floor" — AI chip company Tongyi Lab — is reported to be planning to split off and go public! It is known that Tongyi Lab has already entered the stage of internal restructuring and IPO preparations. Although the exact time for the stock market debut has not been determined, this news is enough to stir up the long-silent chip market again.

Tongyi Lab's story began in 2018. At that time, Alibaba merged the acquired Zhongtian Micro with the self-developed team from DAMO Academy, giving birth to this new entity focused on AI chips and RISC-V technology. In recent years, Tongyi Lab has maintained a low profile but has deep technical strength, launching the **"Hanguang" series of AI inference chips and the "Yitian" series** of cloud-native CPUs, taking on the responsibility of computing power within Alibaba Cloud.

However, Tongyi Lab's ambition clearly goes beyond the "palace walls." In September this year, Tongyi Lab's AI chip PPU quietly appeared in a project of China Unicom, which also sent out a signal: Alibaba is trying to let Tongyi Lab break out from internal services to the external market.

Looking around, the current AI chip industry has become a gathering for companies preparing for listing. On the one hand, Baidu announced the spin-off of Kunlun芯 for listing, and on the other hand, companies such as Moore Threads, Biren Technology, and Suiyuan Technology have joined the ranks of unicorns waiting to enter the capital market.

At a time when global computing power demand is urgent, Tongyi Lab's "declaration of independence" is not only to seek more funding, but also to secure a position in the fierce competition of domestic AI chips. If successful in going public, will this "Tongyi Lab", backed by Alibaba and equipped with solid technology, create greater waves in the computing power world? We will see.