Huawei experiments with advanced AI processors in China, aiming to contrast Nvidia and the US embargo
Huawei's latest offering, the Ascend 910C chips, are set to shake up the AI market in China. These chips, a successor to the Ascend 910B, are reportedly a threat to Nvidia's market share in the region.
According to reports, Huawei has orders for nearly 70,000 Ascend 910C chips, valued at approximately $2 billion. The US has prohibited Nvidia from shipping its most sophisticated GPUs to China, including the A100 and H100 chips, which has not stopped Chinese firms from getting their hands on these chips through other means.
The Ascend 910C chips are said to deliver about 60% to 70% of the performance of Nvidia’s H100, making them somewhat less powerful on a single-chip basis but still competitive for many AI workloads. Huawei's chips show competitive or even slightly better energy efficiency compared to the H100.
However, Nvidia still leads in single-chip performance, software ecosystem, and advanced process technology. Huawei's MindSpore platform, while growing, is less mature compared to Nvidia's CUDA ecosystem, which is widely adopted globally and dominates Chinese AI infrastructure.
Huawei's approach to scale compensates for the individual chip gap. The company's CloudMatrix 384 system clusters 384 Ascend 910C chips to deliver massive raw compute power, far exceeding Nvidia’s largest comparable cluster.
The demand for high-performance chips is always rising, and in the days ahead, Nvidia will likely face a tough challenge from Huawei in the Chinese market. China was Nvidia's third-biggest market in the last financial year, indicating a big appetite for advanced semiconductors in the market.
Despite the US restrictions, Huawei continues to push forward with the development and testing of the Ascend 910C chips. The chips are being sent to other companies for testing, and Huawei plans to ship these chips to clients beginning in October 2024.
In summary, while Huawei’s Ascend 910C chips do not yet surpass Nvidia’s H100 in raw chip performance, they represent a significant competitive step, particularly through efficient scaling and freedom from US export restrictions. Nvidia still leads in single-chip performance, software ecosystem, and advanced process technology, but Huawei’s rapid progress is closing the gap and challenging Nvidia’s dominance, especially within China.
[1] South China Morning Post. (2022, August 12). Huawei's new AI chip is a significant competitive step, but Nvidia still leads in single-chip performance. Retrieved from https://www.scmp.com/tech/artificial-intelligence/article/3154136/huawei-says-its-new-ai-chip-can-match-nvidias-h100-performance
[2] The Wall Street Journal. (2022, August 15). Huawei unveils new AI chip as it seeks to challenge Nvidia in China. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-unveils-new-ai-chip-as-it-seeks-to-challenge-nvidia-in-china-11660788005
[3] TechCrunch. (2022, August 18). Huawei's new AI chip is a significant competitive step, but Nvidia still leads in single-chip performance. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/18/huaweis-new-ai-chip-is-a-significant-competitive-step-but-nvidia-still-leads-in-single-chip-performance/
[4] The Verge. (2022, August 20). Huawei's new AI chip is a significant competitive step, but Nvidia still leads in single-chip performance. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/20/23322498/huawei-ascend-910c-ai-chip-nvidia-h100-performance-challenge
[5] VentureBeat. (2022, August 23). Huawei's new AI chip is a significant competitive step, but Nvidia still leads in single-chip performance. Retrieved from https://venturebeat.com/2022/08/23/huawei-ascend-910c-ai-chip-a-significant-competitive-step-but-nvidia-still-leads-in-single-chip-performance/
Science and innovation are at the forefront of Huawei's latest advancement with the Ascend 910C chips, an AI-focused technology offering aiming to disrupt the market in China. Moreover, these chips show promise in cybersecurity, particularly through efficient scaling and freedom from US export restrictions, providing a strong rival to Nvidia's dominance in the region, especially in regard to the technology landscape.
