Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group has unveiled its first AI inference chip developed by T-Head under the Alibaba DAMO Academy, an initiative it says will accelerate the speed of machine learning tasks – and lead technology development and scientific research.

A former Apple official has cast further doubt on a Bloomberg story about alleged Chinese spying through the implant of chips on server motherboards made by US company Supermicro Computer. Ex-general counsel Bruce Sewell said the FBI had told him it had no knowledge of any probe into such an incident, as claimed by Bloomberg.

Chip maker Qualcomm has fired a broadside against Apple, accusing the latter of "a campaign of false promises, stealth and subterfuge” in the long-running patent-infringement battle between the two firms.