Huawei readies new AI chip for mass shipment as China seeks Nvidia alternatives, sources say

By Fanny Potkin and Che Pan

SINGAPORE/BEIJING (Reuters) -Huawei Applied sciences plans to start mass shipments of its superior 910C synthetic intelligence chip to Chinese language clients as early as subsequent month, two folks acquainted with the matter stated.

Some shipments have already been made, they added.

The timing is fortuitous for Chinese language AI corporations which have been left scrambling for home options to the H20, the first AI chip that Nvidia (NVDA) had till just lately been allowed to promote freely within the Chinese language market.

This month, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration instructed Nvidia that gross sales of the H20 would require an export licence.

Huawei’s 910C, a graphics processing unit (GPU), represents an architectural evolution relatively than a technological breakthrough, in accordance with one of many two folks and a 3rd supply acquainted with its design.

It achieves efficiency corresponding to Nvidia’s H100 chip by combining two 910B processors right into a single bundle by way of superior integration strategies, they stated.

Meaning it has double the computing energy and reminiscence capability of the 910B and it additionally has incremental enhancements, together with enhanced help for various AI workload information, they added.

All sources weren’t authorised to talk to media and declined to be recognized. Huawei didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

In search of to restrict China’s technological growth, significantly advances for its navy, Washington has reduce China off from Nvidia’s most superior AI merchandise together with its flagship B200 chip.

The H100 chip, for instance, was banned from sale in China in 2022 by U.S. authorities earlier than it was even launched.

This has allowed Huawei and Chinese language GPU startups similar to Moore Threads and Iluvatar CoreX to go after what has primarily been a market dominated by Nvidia.

The U.S. Commerce Division’s newest export curbs on Nvidia’s H20 “will imply that Huawei’s Ascend 910C GPU will now turn out to be the {hardware} of selection for (Chinese language) AI mannequin builders and for deploying inference capability,” stated Paul Triolo, a accomplice at consulting agency Albright Stonebridge Group.

Late final 12 months, Huawei distributed samples of the 910C to a number of know-how companies and began accepting orders, sources have stated.

Reuters was not in a position to confirm which corporations could be primarily producing the 910C.

China’s SMIC is manufacturing some major parts of the GPUs utilizing its N+2 7nm course of know-how though its chip yield charges are low, a supply has beforehand stated.

Not less than a few of Huawei’s 910Cs use chips that have been made by Taiwanese contract chip manufacturing big TSMC for China-based Sophgo, in accordance with one of many sources and a fourth individual.

The Commerce Division has been investigating TSMC’s work for Sophgo after certainly one of its TSMC-made chips was present in a 910B processor.

TSMC made almost three million chips in recent times that matched the design ordered by Sophgo, in accordance with Lennart Heim, a researcher at RAND’s Expertise and Safety and Coverage Middle in Arlington, Virginia, who’s monitoring Chinese language developments in AI.

Sophgo didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

TSMC stated it complies with regulatory necessities and it has not provided Huawei since mid-September 2020.

(Reporting by Fanny Potkin, Che Pan and Brenda Goh; Enhancing by Edwina Gibbs)