Huawei vs Nvidia: US concerned as Ascend AI chips ramp up demand in China

Huawei and Nvidia chip war has become a trending news amid the growing demand for AI chips in China. And why not! The table is seemingly turning in favor of the Chinese tech giant, ultimately increasing tension for the U.S.

The U.S. authorities are now concerned as the Huawei Ascend AI chips are becoming popular and the first choice (to some extent) for Chinese firms. If this popularity continues, Ascend AI processors could soon enter the global AI sector.

Let’s take a look at the Nvidia and Huawei chip war chapters!

Nvidia’s dominance in China

U.S. sanctioned Huawei and many other Chinese firms in 2019 over to security concerns. This move prevented China from catching up with its foreign competitors in the technology race.

Meanwhile, U.S. authorities instructed their top companies like Nvidia and TSMC not to supply any advanced chipsets to Chinese customers. But since China was the second-largest market for Nvidia, it continued selling low-efficiency chips in the country.

H20 is one of the best examples. It is an AI GPU chip tailored for China and complies with U.S. export controls. Even though the processor wasn’t very effective for Chinese consumers, they started relying on it as they had no other alternative.

Following this pattern, China became a significant source of sales revenue for Nvidia!

Nvidia AI chips (Image Credits: Nvidia)

Huawei’s comeback in the AI industry

After years of struggle, Huawei stepped back into the AI chip industry and began working on new technologies. Yet, the situation wasn’t good as the company lacked advanced chipmaking tools. The supply chain also remained a bad factor.

Over time, the Chinese tech giant has poured efforts into improving its AI chips and making them better. On the other hand, the Nvidia H20 chip’s fame started fading due to its low efficiency.

Seeing the Huawei efforts, firms like ByteDance ordered 100000 Ascend 910B chips to replace Nvidia. This support gave Huawei the strength to develop Ascend 910C.

Ascend 910C – the turning point!

Huawei silently began testing the Ascend 910C. It even sampled the chips to some Chinese tech companies to know its efficiency and further improve it.

The Ascend 910C is said to be a tough rival to Nvidia H100. It can achieve 60% of the Nvidia H100 inference performance. It is even said to surpass Nvidia B20. Many companies like China Mobile and SenseTime raised demand for Huawei Ascend 910C instead of Nvidia AI chips, suggesting a new era of reliance.

Ascend AI chip (Image Credits: Huawei)

US increased restrictions

Seeing the growth of Huawei in the AI field, the US further increased chip controls on China. Talking about the latest one, the foreign authorities asked Nvidia to stop selling H20 chips in China, or else, it will require a $5.5 billion license.

Meanwhile, Huawei developed a new AI chip cluster called “CloudMatrix 384” which is said to be far better than the Nvidia NVL72. The company’s constant leaps in the AI field put Nvidia under strain.

Nvidia’s response on Huawei’s growth:

Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, said that Huawei is a serious challenger in the AI market. The company has advanced computing and networking tech that is enough for its growth in the AI field. He also shared his concern that US restrictions are a stress for firms like Nvidia, while making Huawei more innovative.

Ascend 910D – the current chapter!

Huawei could start the mass shipment of Ascend 910C this month. At the same time, the company has begun preparing a powerful AI chip called Ascend 910D to fill the gap of Nvidia H20 in China.

Overall, the chip war between the two tech giants is at an interesting point, and it would be worth seeing what happens next!