China's Huawei 'Hoping Its New AI Chip Can Outpower Nvidia'

Chinese tech giant Huawei is getting ready to test its new and most powerful artificial intelligence processor, according to a new report.

Huawei Technologies is keen to replace some higher-end semiconductors produced by US chip giant Nvidia, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

Huawei has approached some Chinese tech companies about testing the technical feasibility of the new chip, called the Ascend 910D, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

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The Chinese company hopes that the latest iteration of its Ascend AI processors will be more powerful than Nvidia’s H100, and is slated to receive the first batch of samples of the processor as early as late May, the report added.

Reuters reported on Monday that Huawei plans to begin mass shipments of its advanced 910C artificial intelligence chip to Chinese customers as early as next month.

Huawei and its Chinese peers have struggled for years to match Nvidia in building top-end chips that could compete with the US firm’s products for training models, a process where data is fed to algorithms to help them learn to make accurate decisions.

Seeking to limit China’s technological development, particularly advances for its military, Washington has cut China off from Nvidia’s most advanced AI products, including its flagship B200 chip.

The H100 chip, for example, was banned from sale in China in 2022 by US authorities before it was even launched.

Nvidia declined to comment while Huawei did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Xi calls for AI self-sufficiency

News about the new Huawei chip comes at a time when President Xi Jinping is pressing China to boost its “self-reliance” and be “self-strengthening” to develop AI in China, according to a state media report on Saturday.

Speaking at a Politburo meeting study session on Friday, Xi said China should leverage its “new whole national system” to push forward with the development of AI, as the country vies with the US for supremacy in artificial intelligence, a key strategic area.

“We must recognise the gaps and redouble our efforts to comprehensively advance technological innovation, industrial development, and AI-empowered applications,” said Xi, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Xi noted policy support would be provided in areas such as government procurement, intellectual property rights, research and cultivating talent.

Some experts say China has narrowed the AI development gap with the United States over the past year.

The Chinese AI startup DeepSeek drew global attention when it launched an AI reasoning model in January that it said was trained with less advanced chips and was cheaper to develop than its Western rivals. China has also made inroads in infrastructure software engineering.

The DeepSeek announcement challenged the assumption that US sanctions were holding back China’s AI sector amid a fierce geopolitical tech rivalry, and that China lagged the US after the breakthrough launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022.

“We must continue to strengthen basic research, concentrate our efforts on mastering core technologies such as high-end chips and basic software, and build an independent, controllable, and collaborative artificial intelligence basic software and hardware system,” Xi said.

He added that AI regulations and laws should be sped up to build a “risk warning and emergency response system, to ensure that artificial intelligence is safe, reliable, and controllable.”

Xi said last year that AI shouldn’t be a “game of rich countries and the wealthy,” while calling for more international governance and cooperation on AI.