Baidu orders Huawei AI chip to exit Nvidia

Huawei has been the center of the US-China trade war but the company is seemingly finding a route for new businesses, as it received AI chip orders from China’s AI giant Baidu.

A new report from Reuters revealed that Baidu placed an order for AI chips in August this year. This business was way before the recent US curbs on AI chip suppliers Nvidia to its Chinese customers.

Specifically, Baidu ordered 1600 Huawei Ascend 910B AI chipset. This is considered as comparative to Nvidia’s A100 chip for 200 servers. In terms of delivery, Huawei has already delivered 60% of its orders as of October, which may include about 1000 chips.

Looking at the value, the report mentions that this chip order is worth 450 million yuan ($61.83 million) and Huawei could ship all of the pending chips by the end of this year.

For the time being, the order seems to be a bit lower as compared to the purchases Chinese customers make through Nvidia. Also, the Huawei chip orders from Baid may not be as competitive as Nvidia.

Still, people related to this matter see it as an upcoming shift in the industry that Huawei could bring with its AI chips. It’s also being said that Huawei may not have the perfect solutions for AI chips but the company is the most sophisticated option that the Chinese AI industry currently has.

Meanwhile, Huawei and Baidu have a long partnership in the Chinese AI industry and have been collaborating on different research programs. Therefore, this new revelation confirms that the partnership is still ongoing.

Industry analyst predicts that the US ban on AI chip shipment for Chinese companies has brought a new opportunity for Huawei to explore a whole new business.

In a prediction, Huawei could gain an AI chip market worth $7 billion in China alone. Therefore, the new AI chip orders from Baidu could be an entry gate for Huawei to the big business that it could expect from other big players in the AI industry.

(source)