China’s  Alibaba Group announced on Tuesday that it plans to replace chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang with current executive vice chairman Joseph Tsai in September.  

The move comes after the company announced in March it plans to split the company into six different groups. 

In a statement posted online, Zhand said that it was "the right time for me to make a transition, given the importance of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group as it progresses towards a full spin-off."

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The Chinese tech giant is one of China's most important technology firms as it encompasses several business operations spanning cloud computing, e-commerce, logistics, media and entertainment, and AI.  

Once the reshuffle is completed, Zhang will continue to operate as chairman and CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, the company said.  

On another note, sanctions on China's tech businesses have made it far more difficult for the industry to expand research to build artificial intelligence (AI) without relying on cutting-edge US semiconductors.

A report by the Wall Street Journal revealed in May that Chinese businesses searched for strategies that might enable them to employ fewer or less powerful chips to achieve high-level AI performance.

Moreover, the reports noted that Chinese tech firms also sought to research chip fusion aimed at reducing reliance on a single type of hardware; this included major firms such as telecom giant Huawei, e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding, and Baidu tech company.

While overtaking leading US companies in AI development remains a major challenge, there have been some promising experiments that, if developed successfully, could allow Chinese firms to overcome limitations forced upon them by US sanctions and even become more resilient to any future sanctions.

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