Huawei to use 7nm AI chips in 2025 due to U.S. restrictions: Report

A new report says that Huawei will continue to use 7nm AI chips in 2025 following US trade challenges and tech restrictions. The company has been planning to take new steps in the chipset field. Although its ambitions are once again hit by the U.S.

Bloomberg noted that Huawei will use existing 7nm tech for its AI chips in 2025 due to US restrictions. The foreign authorities aim to increase trade controls for China.

Huawei has been working on its two new Ascend AI chips as alternatives to Nvidia chipsets. One of these seems to be Ascend 910C while the other is unknown.

These new chipsets claim to be more efficient than the Nvidia H100 and can even rival B20 processors (as per analysts). However, the company’s plans are already facing struggles because of US restrictions over high-end chipmaking tools.

People familiar with the matter said that the U.S. is preventing Huawei’s chipmaking partners from accessing cutting-edge EUV systems from ASML. As a result, the OEM’s AI chips will continue to run on traditional design till 2026 (at least).

While chipmakers like TSMC, Apple, and Nvidia are eyeing the 2nm tech, Huawei is still struggling to move beyond 7nm chips. This struggle will eventually affect China’s chip progress at least for one more year – 2025.

One of the people even said that the same issue could be seen with the new Mate 70 series. Although the Chinese tech giant has crossed its fingers on this matter.

Huawei to use 7nm AI chips in 2025 due to U.S. restrictions (Image Credits: Weibo)

Another factor behind this struggle is Huawei’s partners. A firm expects to stock some items. However, SMIC is facing problems even in developing sufficient 7nm chip quantities. It further raises questions if Huawei will get enough chips in the future for its smartphones and AI products.

Regardless of efforts, it seems a bit difficult for Huawei and China to build a world-class supply chain and draw the level with foreign competitors in technologies.

Huawei is unable to develop powerful AI chips due to the lack of advanced chipmaking tools. While EUV is a must for modern semiconductors, the tech giant is still trying to win the chipset race with the older DUV systems.

Even though the company is exploring better solutions to this problem. Its partners also tried to push the limit of lithography machines by ASML but didn’t do well.

A person said that Huawei requires many Kirin chips for its phones this year. The company further plans to build hundreds of thousands of Ascend AI chips in the time ahead. Though how these ambitions will turn into reality would be worth looking at.

Huawei to use 7nm AI chips in 2025 due to U.S. restrictions: Report (Image Credits: Huawei)

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