Alibaba Group has introduced its first AI inference chip called ‘Hanguang 800’ which performs machine-learning tasks efficiently and quickly.

The neural processing unit is already being used to power features on Alibaba’s e-commerce sites, including product search and personalised recommendations. The Hanguang 800 will be made available to Alibaba Cloud customers at a later stage.

According to Alibaba, its ecommerce website Taobao previously took an hour to...