Chinese Huawei has set a goal to replace NVIDIA's high-performance artificial intelligence (AI) chips and is enhancing its own AI chip performance, the U.S. Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 27th.
WSJ noted that Huawei has been in contact with Chinese technology corporations to test the technical feasibility in the early stages of developing the next-generation AI chip "Ascend 910D" and is expected to receive the first sample products by the end of May. According to WSJ sources, Huawei expects that this AI chip will have more powerful performance than NVIDIA's flagship product "H100."
The AI chip products previously developed by Huawei were called "910B" and "910C." Earlier, Reuters cited sources on the 21st, stating that Huawei developed the 910C product, which packages two 910B processors, and plans to supply it in bulk to customers starting next month. Huawei began distributing samples of the 910C to technology corporations last year and has reportedly already supplied some quantities.
Huawei is expected to ship more than 800,000 units of the 910B and 910C chips to customers, including Chinese state-owned telecommunications companies and private AI developers such as TikTok parent ByteDance, this year.
The U.S. government has blocked China's access to advanced semiconductors over the past few years, and for NVIDIA's H100, it prohibited exports to China even before its release in 2022. To avoid U.S. regulations, NVIDIA has been producing the H20 chip, which has lower specifications than the H100, for sale in China, but the U.S. Department of Commerce recently decided to restrict exports of the H20 to China as well.
After the Trump administration restricted NVIDIA's H20 exports, some Chinese corporations are in discussions to increase orders for the 910C from Huawei. WSJ pointed out that "the steady technological advancement of Huawei, one of China's leading technology corporations, demonstrates the resilience of China's semiconductor industry despite the blocking efforts by (U.S.) Washington regarding access to semiconductor manufacturing equipment."