Huawei Unleashes AI Chip Offensive in China’s Race to Replace Nvidia

Huawei Technologies is planning to start mass shipments of its advanced 910C artificial intelligence (AI) chip to Chinese consumers next month, a Reuters report cited people familiar with the matter.

According to the report, some shipments have already been made.

Good Time For Chinese AI Firms?

The timing could not have been better for Chinese AI companies which have been left scrambling for domestic alternatives to the H20, the primary AI chip that Nvidia was allowed to sell in the Chinese markets freely up until recently.

Trump's Monopoly

The United States President Donald Trump said earlier this month that the sales of the H20 would require an export licence.

Is Huawei's 910C An Equal Competent?

According to the report, Huawei's 910C, a graphics processing unit (GPU), represents an architectural evolution rather than a technological breakthrough. It also achieves performance comparable to Nvidia's H100 chip by combining two 910B processors into a single package through advanced integration techniques, it added.

This chip, therefore, has double the computing power and memory capacity of the 910B and it also has incremental improvements, including enhanced support for diverse AI workload data.

Additionally, Washington has cut China off from Nvidia's most advanced AI products including its flagship B2000 chip.

For instance, the H100 chip was banned from sale in China in 2022 by US authorities before it was even launched.

New Players In China

As a result, Huawei and Chinese GPU startups like Moore Threads and Iluvatar CoreX will go after what was a market dominated by Nvidia.

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