SenseTime among Chinese AI companies allying amid US sanctions

Now, in the global race for AI supremacy, Chinese companies have decided to form an alliance to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers and build a domestic ecosystem. Facial recognition developer SenseTime, which has pivoted to LLMs, is among those involved in the alliance.

SenseTime, like fellow alliance participant Huawei, are sanctioned by the U.S., with export limits for key technologies to China and bans on their import into America. Nvidia, one of the most important chipmakers for the AI industry, was restricted in supplying its most advanced GPUs to China until very recently.

Now, Chinese AI developers and chipmakers have announced the “Model-Chip Ecosystem Innovation Alliance” at the opening of the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai. The alliance includes Chinese LLM developers StepFun and MiniMax, and AI chipmakers such as Biren, Huawei, Illuvatar CoreX, Metax and Moore Threads.

“This is an innovative ecosystem that connects the complete technology chain from chips to models to infrastructure,” said Zhao Lidong, CEO of chipmaker Enflame, another alliance member (via Reuters).

In addition, StepFun revealed a second alliance: the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce AI Committee to “promote the deep integration of AI technology and industrial transformation.”

As StepFun announced the new alliances at WAIC, the Shanghai conference also saw unveilings of new technology.

Baidu showed off NOVA, a “digital human” tool, which features “cloning technology” that can reproduce a human’s voice biometrics and body language from only 10 minutes of sample footage. It marketed this as a way for businesses to create virtual livestreamers.

Huawei’s CloudMatrix 384, which according to U.S. research firm SemiAnalysis outperforms Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72, drew excited chatter. The way it’s designed allows the 384 910C chips clustered together to compensate for less powerful individual chip performance, SemiAnalysis said.

Article Topics

AI chips  |  China  |  Huawei  |  SenseTime