Alibaba announced on Wednesday a strategic collaboration with United States chipmaker, Nvidia to accelerate its work on humanoid robots.

Alibaba announced the partnership in Hangzhou during a subforum of its annual developers’ conference, featuring panelists from both Nvidia and Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

The announcement sent Alibaba’s shares in Hong Kong up more than 9 per cent as CEO Eddie Wu outlined plans to significantly increase investment in artificial intelligence.

The partnership comes amid heightened U.S.-China tech tensions.

Nvidia, a leader in advanced semiconductors, faces U.S. export restrictions on its most advanced AI chips, limiting access to China.

Alibaba said its cloud division will integrate “the full suite of the Nvidia physical AI software stack,” describing the deal as a milestone in the field of physical AI.

“The initiative provides developers with a comprehensive, cloud-native platform to accelerate advancements in humanoid robotics and physical AI solutions,” the statement said.

In February, the Chinese company announced plans to invest at least 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) in artificial intelligence and cloud computing over the next three years.

The company’s shares surged on Wednesday following remarks by CEO Eddie Wu at the Hangzhou event.

“We are actively proceeding with the 380 billion investment in AI infrastructure, and plan to add more,” he said.