Huawei created a new AI chip to compete with Nvidia
Huawei Technologies is preparing to evaluate its latest and most advanced artificial-intelligence processor, which the company anticipates may supplant certain premium offerings from U.S. chip leader Nvidia. The consistent progress made by a prominent technology firm in China highlights the robustness of the nation’s semiconductor sector, even in the face of attempts by Washington to hinder it, such as restricting access to certain Western chip-manufacturing tools.
According to sources familiar with the matter, Huawei has reached out to several Chinese tech companies to explore the technical feasibility of its new chip, known as the Ascend 910D. The company is expected to obtain the initial set of processor samples as soon as late May, according to several sources. The development remains in its nascent phase, necessitating a series of evaluations to gauge the chip’s performance and prepare it for market readiness, according to sources.
Huawei anticipates that the newest version of its Ascend AI processors will surpass the capabilities of Nvidia’s H100, a widely utilized chip for AI training that debuted in 2022, according to one source. The earlier iterations are designated as 910B and 910C. Huawei has positioned itself as China’s leading contender in a technological arena where the U.S. continues to maintain its advantage. The Shenzhen-based company has created several of the nation’s most promising alternatives to Nvidia’s AI chips. It forms a component of Beijing’s initiative to cultivate a self-sufficient semiconductor industry.
Huawei, having been placed on a U.S. trade blacklist for almost six years, demonstrated its capacity to overcome American restrictions by launching a high-end smartphone in 2023. The Mate 60 model, equipped with a domestically manufactured processor, elicited concern from the U.S. government upon its unveiling during a trip to Beijing by then-Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Earlier this month, Washington included Nvidia’s H20 chip—the most advanced processor the company could sell in China without a license—on an expanding list of semiconductors subject to sales restrictions in that region. Nvidia announced it would incur a $5.5 billion charge as a consequence. The restrictions present a potential advantage for Nvidia’s Chinese competitors, including Huawei and Beijing-based Cambricon Technologies, which have created analogous chips.
This year, Huawei is set to deliver over 800,000 Ascend 910B and 910C chips to clients, which include state-owned telecommunications carriers and private AI developers like TikTok parent ByteDance, according to sources familiar with the situation. According to sources, certain buyers have initiated discussions with Huawei to boost their orders of the 910C following the Trump administration’s restrictions on the exports of Nvidia’s H20s. In spite of manufacturing bottlenecks, Huawei and various Chinese chip companies have managed to deliver certain products that are comparable to Nvidia chips, though they do so with a delay of a few years. Chip manufacturers are increasingly adopting technologies that enable the integration of multiple chips to develop more powerful processors, as the challenge and cost of miniaturizing the circuitry within chips continue to escalate.
Beijing has further motivated Chinese AI developers to enhance their acquisitions of domestic chips. State data centers have indicated that the majority of chips they utilized were sourced from Chinese suppliers. Nonetheless, earlier Huawei chips have faced challenges in meeting the expectations set by their promotion. The 910C was positioned to clients as being on par with Nvidia’s H100; however, engineers who have utilized both chips indicated that Huawei’s performance did not meet the expectations set by its competitor. Huawei encounters obstacles in manufacturing these chips at a considerable scale. It has been severed from the globe’s preeminent chip foundry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. China’s nearest alternative, Semiconductor Manufacturing International, faces restrictions on acquiring the most advanced chip-making equipment.
Washington has additionally restricted China from directly obtaining certain critical components for AI chips, including the most advanced high-bandwidth memory units. In light of these constraints, Huawei executives have emphasized the importance of concentrating on the development of more efficient and faster systems to maximize the potential of their chips, rather than solely enhancing the power of individual chips.
In April, Huawei unveiled the CloudMatrix 384, a computing system that integrates 384 Ascend 910C chips. Some analysts indicated that the system exhibited greater power than Nvidia’s flagship rack system, which incorporates 72 of Nvidia’s Blackwell chips, under certain conditions, despite the Chinese system’s higher power consumption. Integrating additional chips into a system presents a significant challenge. Industry practitioners emphasized the necessity of stable networks alongside robust software and engineering to avert network failures. “Having five times as many Ascends more than offsets each GPU being only one-third the performance of an Nvidia Blackwell,” research firm SemiAnalysis noted in a report. “The deficiencies in power are relevant but not a limiting factor in China.”
