SHANGHAI, July 28 (Reuters) - China's artificial

intelligence companies have announced two new industry

alliances, aiming to develop a domestic ecosystem to reduce

dependence on foreign tech as they seek to cope with U.S. export

restrictions on advanced Nvidia ( NVDA ) chipsets.

The announcements were timed to coincide with the three-day

World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai ending on

Monday.

The conference also showcased a slew of new products, such

as an AI computing system from Huawei that experts

believe rivals Nvidia's ( NVDA ) most advanced offering, as well as

consumer-friendly products such as several kinds of digital AI

glasses.

The "Model-Chip Ecosystem Innovation Alliance" brings

together Chinese developers of large language models (LLMs) and

AI chip manufacturers.

"This is an innovative ecosystem that connects the complete

technology chain from chips to models to infrastructure," said

Zhao Lidong, CEO of Enflame, one of the participating

chipmakers.

Other manufacturers of graphics processing units (GPUs) in

the alliance include Huawei, Biren, and Moore Threads, which

have been hit by U.S. sanctions that block them from purchasing

advanced tech made with U.S. know-how. The alliance was

announced by StepFun, an LLM developer.

A second alliance, the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce

AI Committee, aims to "promote the deep integration of AI

technology and industrial transformation."

Participants include SenseTime ( SNTMF ), also sanctioned by

the U.S. and which has pivoted from facial recognition

technology to LLMs. Others are StepFun and another LLM

developer, MiniMax, as well as chipmakers Metax and Iluvatar

CoreX.

One of the most talked about products at the conference was

Huawei's CloudMatrix 384 which incorporates 384 of its latest

910C chips and outperforms Nvidia's ( NVDA ) GB200 NVL72 on some metrics,

according to U.S. research firm SemiAnalysis.

Huawei's system design capabilities have meant that it has

been able to use more chips and system-level innovations to

compensate for weaker individual chip performance, SemiAnalysis

said.

At least six other Chinese computing firms showcased similar

"clustering" chip technology. Metax demonstrated an AI supernode

featuring 128 C550 chips designed to support large-scale

liquid-cooled data centre requirements.

Other events included Tencent's ( TCTZF ) unveiling of its

open-source Hunyuan3D World Model 1.0, which the company said

enables users to generate interactive 3D environments through

text or image prompts.

Baidu ( BIDU ) announced what it said was next-generation

"digital human" technology that helps businesses to create

virtual livestreamers. It features "cloning technology" that can

replicate a human's voice, tone, and body language from just 10

minutes of sample footage.

Alibaba ( BABA ) was among those announcing AI glasses.

Its Quark AI Glasses are powered by its Qwen AI model and are

due to be released in China by the end of 2025. They will allow

users to access the tech giant's map service for easy navigating

and to use Alipay by scanning QR codes with voice commands.