The Russian company Gazprom said, on Tuesday, that gas supplies to China via the “Power of Siberia” pipeline have been resumed after maintenance work, according to what the company said, in a statement via the “Telegram” application.
Bloomberg News Agency reported that the company confirmed, in a statement, that maintenance work took place from September 15 to 22.
The statement added that the contract between Gazprom and the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation stipulates that maintenance work be carried out on the line twice during the year, in the spring and fall seasons.
Alibaba Group intensified its bet on artificial intelligence by announcing the development of a new model that may reach four times the size of its current main model, in addition to revealing a new artificial intelligence chip that it described as the most powerful in China, in a move that pushed the company’s stock in Hong Kong to rise by more than 5 percent.
The announcements come at a time when Chinese technology companies are racing to develop local alternatives to NVIDIA chips, amid tightening US restrictions on exporting advanced processors to China, which makes the ability to build an integrated local artificial intelligence system a strategic issue for Chinese companies.
During the annual Apsara cloud computing conference in Hangzhou, Alibaba revealed plans extending from basic models and chips to data centers, an indication of its desire to control the largest number of infrastructure layers needed to train and operate artificial intelligence systems.
CEO Eddie Wu said that the group’s “Coin” team plans to train a new model with a size ranging between 5 and 10 trillion pieces of information. With the aim of dealing with more complex tasks that take longer, as part of the company’s endeavor to develop superior artificial intelligence that exceeds human capabilities.
The “Coin 3.8 Max” model, which is the company’s current main model, contains about 2.4 trillion pieces of information. Alibaba explained that it is currently working on training the next generation, “Coin 4,” while the sizes of the “Coin 4.5” and “Coin 5” models are expected to rise in the future to a range between 5 and 10 trillion pieces of information.
Wu noted progress in the ability of models to improve their performance on their own by discovering weaknesses, conducting experiments, and producing training data with limited human involvement.
In parallel with the development of models, the group unveiled the new “Chenwoo V900” chip for artificial intelligence, developed by the T-Head Semiconductor Unit.
Wu said that the performance of the new processor is three times that of the previous generation, the M890, which the company launched last May.
Up to 500,000 of these chips can be connected into huge computing clusters to train and run the largest artificial intelligence models. Large-scale commercial production of the chip is scheduled to begin during the first quarter of 2027, with the company expecting to achieve “significant growth” in annual shipments of artificial intelligence processors.
This step is considered an attempt by Alibaba to reduce its dependence on foreign technology in one of the most important components of the artificial intelligence infrastructure, especially with the restrictions imposed by Washington on Chinese companies’ access to some advanced American chips.
Markets welcomed the announcements, as Alibaba's Hong Kong-listed shares jumped 5.1 percent, reaching their highest levels in a month.
Spending is not limited to models and chips. Wu has set a goal to raise the total capacity of Alibaba Cloud's global data centers to more than 20 gigawatts by 2032, an indication of the enormous amount of infrastructure that the group expects to need in the coming years.
He said customer demand for AI is “exceptionally strong” and is driving cloud computing revenue growth to accelerate, but supply chain constraints still limit the speed of expansion.
He added that the expected demand in the medium and long term greatly exceeds the company’s current ability to provide computing power, noting that “Alibaba Cloud” will begin, during the current quarter, operating supercomputing nodes dedicated to artificial intelligence on a commercial scale.
This expansion outlines a strategic plan that goes beyond the competition to produce a more advanced artificial intelligence model. At the same time, Alibaba is betting on the model, chip, data center, and cloud computing, giving it greater ability to control development and expansion costs.
For China, this trend carries additional importance as US restrictions become an incentive to accelerate the construction of a local technology ecosystem. With the rise in demand for computing power, the success of companies such as Alibaba in producing chips capable of running large models will become an important factor in determining the speed of progress of the Chinese artificial intelligence industry in the coming years.
European gas prices fell by more than 6 percent on Tuesday, hitting their lowest levels in three weeks, after Iranian statements about the possibility of quickly reopening the Strait of Hormuz raised hopes for the return of the diplomatic track between Tehran and Washington.
Intercontinental Stock Exchange data showed that the reference Dutch contract for next month at the TTF Center declined by 2.37 euros to 70.89 euros per megawatt-hour by 11:04 GMT, after touching during the session the level of 68.65 euros, the lowest since August 31.
The British contract for next month also fell by 5.42 pence to 176.18 pence per thermal unit, after recording a daily low of 170.40 pence.
One of the dealers said that the wave of selling came after statements by an Iranian official who stated that Tehran is able to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the United States eases its military pressure and lifts the restrictions imposed on Iranian ports.
Prices had begun to decline since Monday, driven by hopes of resuming diplomatic efforts, falling by about 12 percent since the beginning of the week.
Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst at Global Risk Management, said: “The markets’ attention is currently focused on the United Nations meetings in New York and the possibility of launching negotiations between the United States and Iran.”
He added that direct talks between the two sides have not yet been confirmed, noting that any potential agreement will likely require major concessions from Washington that may be difficult to make in light of the approaching elections.
On the other hand, traders believe that weather factors and demand levels in Asia will remain the main driver of prices during the next month, pointing out that the market will monitor the price level at which consumers and industries begin to reduce their gas consumption.
LSEG Oil Research analysts stated in a weekly report that the final demand for liquefied natural gas in Northeast Asia is still weak, explaining that some customers in China, Japan and Turkey have offered to resell or market their shipments in the spot market, while demand in India has remained stable.
In Europe, LSEG meteorologist George Mueller expected warmer and drier weather than usual to prevail over the next two weeks.
Data from the European Gas Infrastructure Association showed that European gas stocks reached 69.94 percent of their capacity, a daily increase of 0.31 percentage points, but they are still about 11.76 percentage points lower compared to the same period last year.
At the same time, pressure on Norwegian supplies continued due to maintenance work, as reserved quantities fell to 262.5 million cubic meters per day on Tuesday, compared to 273.3 million cubic meters per day the previous day, with expectations of a further decline on Wednesday, according to data from Gasco, the gas infrastructure operator.
In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract fell by €0.86 to €85.73 per metric ton.
