Huawei silently testing Ascend 910C AI chip to rival Nvidia: Report

Amid the growing U.S.-China chip war, a new report states that Huawei is quietly working on a brand-new AI chip called – Ascend 910C. The latest processor seems an effort by the tech giant to challenge Nvidia artificial intelligence chipsets in China.

Wall Street Journal reported that Huawei is readying the Ascend 910C AI chip in China. The company has started testing the chipset with different Chinese internet and telecom partners to inspect its overall potential as well as performance efficiency.

The report reveals that firms like ByteDance, Baidu, and China Mobile have seemingly obtained the Ascend 910C chipset. With a few test results, the Chinese tech maker informed its clients that the latest AI processor can easily rival with Nvidia H100.

Note that the company has been doing these trials for the past few weeks. It means that the new chipset is almost ready. Adding more details, WSJ notes that the Chinese manufacturer could begin shipping the chip by October this year, at the earliest.

WSJ further states that Huawei and its potential clients have negotiated for 70000+ chip orders. These are likely to be worth $2 billion. With a new AI processor, Huawei would be able to draw level with its competitors in the smart AI chipsets race.

Huawei vs Nvidia

It seems Huawei is making efforts to fill the gaps left by Nvidia in its home ground. Launched last year, the Nvidia H100 never came directly to China, due to U.S. ban. The chipmaker was commanded not to ship any advanced processor in the region.

Even though the company introduced three new chips for China, they were of low quality and didn’t meet industrial needs. As a result, Huawei made a step. The OEM is still struggling with production delay issues, yet the latest report implies that the tech giant is managing to break off the U.S. sanctions and become independent.

Nvidia, on the other hand, is working on a new China-oriented chip B20. But in case, it doesn’t comply with U.S. regulations, it won’t be shipped to China. Over this, an analyst at SemiAnalysis research firm says that he sees Huawei Ascend 910C as an advanced chip that could perform better than the Nvidia B20 processor.

|| Source – Wall Street Journal ||