WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF
The US placed sanctions on China preventing the country from importing advanced Nvidia GPUs, so China is making new, better versions.
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In the race to catch up with then beat US chip giant Nvidia China’s Huawei Technologies is preparing to test its newest and most powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) processor as it hopes to replace some higher-end products from Nvidia, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
Huawei has approached some Chinese tech companies about testing the technical feasibility of the new chip, called the Ascend 910D, the United States newspaper reported Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Future of AI and Computing, by Keynote Matthew Griffin
The Chinese company is hoping that the latest iteration of its Ascend AI processors will be more powerful than California-based Nvidia’s H100, and is due to receive the processor’s first batch of samples as early as late May, added the report. Previous versions are called 910B and 910C.
The people interviewed indicate that the chip is in early development and will undergo a series of tests to evaluate its performance and prepare it for customer use.
Reuters news agency reported that Huawei plans to begin mass shipments of its advanced 910C AI chip to Chinese customers as early as next month.
Huawei and its Chinese peers have struggled for years to build top-end chips that could compete with Nvidia’s products for training models, a process where data is fed to algorithms to help them learn to make accurate decisions.
Washington has cut China off from Nvidia’s most advanced AI products, including its flagship B200 chip, in the hopes of limiting China’s technological development, particularly advances for its military.
US authorities banned the sale of the H100 chip in 2022 before it was even launched.
Huawei has nonetheless succeeded, despite the US’s lead in the technology sector and its attempts to prevent Chinese development. The Shenzhen-based firm has developed some of the nation’s most promising alternatives to Nvidia’s AI chips, a key part of Beijing’s strategy to cultivate a self-sufficient semiconductor industry.
Despite being on a US trade blacklist for nearly six years, Huawei demonstrated its resilience against US restrictions by launching the high-end Mate 60 smartphone in 2023. Powered by a domestically produced processor, the phone’s introduction during then-Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s visit to Beijing shocked the US government.
