According tothe Wall Street Journal, Huawei has begun testing its new Ascend 910C chip with a number of local partners. The chip is claimed to match the speed and efficiency of Nvidia’s latest H100 chip.
Huawei aims to start shipping the chip in early October. Nvidia had also planned to start shipping its latest AI chips, known as Blackwell, in the fourth quarter of this year, but reports suggest this has been delayed until next year due to design issues. This would narrow the gap between the latest offerings from both companies in the market.
The US has imposed restrictions on the sale of advanced chips to China, including the H100, and has also banned the sale of equipment used to manufacture chips with small nanometer processes. However, in August 2023, Huawei surprised the world with its Mate 60 smartphone, which uses a 7nm process chip. Reuters reported in February that China’s largest chipmaker, SMIC, is preparing to open its first 5nm chip manufacturing plant in Shanghai.
The production of 7nm chips was surprising in terms of timing, coming much sooner than expected. Similarly, reaching the efficiency and power of the H100 in record time would be surprising and promising of the possibility of surpassing it in a short time. This rapid development and catching up with the best global companies in the field at such speed indicates significant capabilities and a high probability of surpassing them.
Some Chinese partners have begun testing the new Ascend 910C chip, and there are ongoing discussions among Chinese technology giants to purchase it, including ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, and Baidu, the Chinese search giant.
While this chip will not pose a threat to Nvidia’s global market — it may not cover the needs of the Chinese domestic market for AI chips, and Nvidia’s sales have already declined in China due to its inability to sell advanced chips there — it represents a strong new start for Huawei and Chinese AI companies that will be able to obtain advanced technologies for training their AI models at prices lower than Nvidia’s.
