Alibaba said its 128-core Yitian 710 scored 440 in SPECint2017 and outperformed the leading Arm server processor of the time. That is a company-reported benchmark claim—not a valid official SPECrate2017_int_base result. SPEC’s later Panjiu-M submission lists the processor in a 128-core system, but marks the result non-compliant, leaves the SPECrate score fields blank and labels the benchmark rows NC.
What is Alibaba’s Yitian 710?
Yitian 710 is an Arm server processor developed by Alibaba’s T-Head semiconductor unit. Alibaba announced it in October 2021 for use in its own data centers, as part of a broader effort to build computing capacity around custom-designed chips. Alibaba Cloud executive Jeff Zhang described that goal as “boosting our computing capabilities with better performance and improved energy efficiency.”
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
|
EPYC Hexadeca-core 7282 2.8GHz Server Processor | $301.44 | Buy on Amazon |
Alibaba’s announcement described the chip as an Armv9 design with 128 cores, a 5 nm manufacturing process and 60 billion transistors. It also specified eight DDR5 memory channels and 96 PCIe 5.0 lanes. Those are the company’s announced specifications; they are not all independently established by the later SPEC submission.
What did Alibaba claim about the benchmark?
Alibaba reported “a score of 440 in SPECint2017,” which it described as a measure of CPU integer processing power. The company also said the Yitian 710 delivered 20% more performance and 50% better energy efficiency than the then-leading Arm server processor. These are Alibaba’s 2021 claims, not results established by a compliant SPEC rate record.
Recommended Free Tools
#1 Best Overall
- No of CPU Cores : 16
- Total L3 Cache : 64 MB
- Base Clock : 2.8 GHz
- System Memory Type : DDR4
- Per Socket Mem BW : 85.3 GB/s
The wording matters: Alibaba called the figure a SPECint2017 score, but the available official SPEC submission does not show 440 as a SPECrate2017_int_base result. The company announcement and the later SPEC record are distinct pieces of evidence and should not be conflated.
What does SPEC’s official submission say?
SPEC’s June 2022 Panjiu-M Integer Rate submission documents a system using one Yitian 710 with 128 enabled cores. SPEC explicitly states: “SPEC® has determined that this result does not comply with the SPEC OSG Guidelines for General Availability and the SPEC CPU 2017 run and reporting rules.” The SPECrate2017_int_base and SPECrate2017_int_peak fields are blank, and the benchmark rows are marked NC.
As a result, this submission cannot establish an official SPECrate2017_int_base score or record for Yitian 710. Its configuration details remain useful for understanding the system that was submitted, but the non-compliant result must not be treated as a valid benchmark ranking.
What the submitted system configuration documents
| Item | Panjiu-M configuration in SPEC’s June 2022 submission |
|---|---|
| Processor | One T-Head Yitian 710 |
| Enabled cores | 128 |
| Nominal and maximum frequency | 2.75 GHz |
| Memory | 512 GB |
| Operating system | Anolis OS release 8.6 |
| Kernel | Linux 5.10.84-10.64k.al8.aarch64 |
| Compiler | Red Hat GCC 10.2.1 |
| Storage | 240 GB SATA SSD |
| Power settings | Performance-oriented |
The configuration record also includes compiler and operating-system notes, including NUMA binding and cache-reset procedures. Those are details reported for this submission; they do not amount to independent reproduction of its benchmark results.
Why SPECrate is not a single-thread speed score
SPEC distinguishes throughput from single-task performance. SPECrate2017 Integer measures how much work a computer can complete over time, while SPECspeed2017 Integer measures the time for one computer to complete a single task. A valid rate result from a 128-core machine would therefore describe aggregate throughput under that benchmark—not the speed of one core or a single-thread record.
That distinction applies even before considering the submission’s non-compliant status. The 440 company-reported figure should not be relabeled as a valid SPECrate2017_int_base score, nor used as evidence of single-thread performance.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Can you use Yitian 710 through Alibaba Cloud?
Alibaba Cloud’s g8y Elastic Compute Service (ECS) family is the practical access path documented for Yitian 710 workloads. Its documentation identifies Yitian 710 with a base frequency of at least 2.75 GHz and says the instances do not use hyper-threading. Listed use cases include containers, microservices, web and application servers, video encoding, high-performance computing and CPU-based machine learning.
That makes g8y instances relevant to people who want to run workloads on the architecture; it does not make them a way to reproduce the SPEC submission automatically. Confirm the instance’s current availability in your region, pricing and any partner terms with Alibaba Cloud before choosing it.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
