(Yicai) Sept. 4 -- Ant Group, a leading Chinese financial technology firm backed by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, has ratcheted up its push into the semiconductor industry by investing in three domestic chipmakers over the past 10 days.

Ant unit Yunya Enterprise Management Consulting increased its stake in high-end network chips and related software services provider Yunhe Zhiwang Shanghai Technology to 3.7 percent from 3.3 percent on Sept. 2, according to data on corporate information platform Tianyancha.

On Aug. 29, Yunya Zhiwang bought a 14.3 percent stake in Yezhixin Technology, a Shanghai-based startup focused on edge artificial intelligence chips, offering neural processing units for smart glasses and robots. 

In addition, Yunya Zhiwang acquired 1.9 percent of InnoStar Semiconductor on Aug. 26, which specializes in AI in-memory computing intellectual property, large language model acceleration solutions, and system on a chip. InnoStar is already shipping these.

This investment spree builds on Ant’s AI First strategy, launched in 2023. Since then, the Hangzhou-based company has backed Moxin Technology Shenzhen in a Series B fundraiser to support the development of its second-generation AI chip.

Heavy investment in frontier technologies has impacted Ant’s profitability, with parent Alibaba Group Holding reporting that its equity-method investment income from the unit tumbled 61 percent to CNY1.5 billion (USD210 million) last quarter from a year earlier. That was primarily attributed to new growth initiatives, tech investments, and declines in the fair value of some investments.

Editor: Martin Kadiev