Alibaba shares rose in premarket trading on Wednesday after reports that China Unicom agreed to use its artificial intelligence chips, according to Benzinga. The deal highlights Beijing’s push to develop domestic alternatives as U.S. restrictions block access to Nvidia’s advanced accelerators. CCTV confirmed Alibaba Cloud has already delivered tens of thousands of chips to Unicom, while Alibaba pledged $53.5 billion over three years to expand AI infrastructure. Shares are up more than 91 year-to-date, recently surpassing their 52-week high of $163.