TMTPOST — Chinese artificial intelligence developer Z.ai established a 1-gigawatt data center facility powered entirely by domestic chips on Tuesday while completing the acquisition of heterogeneous compute software firm XCore Sigma. The dual initiatives secure critical infrastructure and software optimization capabilities for the foundation model developer. Spun out of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Computing Technology, XCore Sigma specializes in cross-architecture software stacks and compiler optimization designed to bridge hardware disparities. Integrating XCore Sigma’s proprietary compiler and runtime engine allows Z.ai to improve hardware utilization rates across mixed domestic chip clusters, reducing inference expenditures while accelerating large-scale model deployments. Deploying domestic chipsets at gigawatt scale requires sophisticated abstraction layers to reconcile hardware fragmentation across disparate semiconductor platforms. Because domestic chipmakers utilize non-standardized instruction set architectures, model developers face persistent execution bottlenecks when scaling distributed training clusters. By combining dedicated physical infrastructure with specialized compiler software, foundation model vendors are building vertically integrated hardware-software stacks to optimize compute efficiency and maintain long-term operational autonomy.