Huawei, the Chinese tech company, is set to commence mass shipments of its Ascend 910C AI chip to Chinese customers as early as May, according to a report by Reuters. This development comes as Chinese AI firms seek domestic alternatives to NVIDIA’s H20 chip, which has recently become subject to US export licensing requirements.
The Ascend 910C is an upgraded graphics processing unit (GPU) that combines two 910B processors into a single package, effectively doubling computing power and memory capacity.
Last week, NVIDIA announced in an exchange filing that the US government has potentially charged NVIDIA $5.5 billion for exporting H20 AI chips to China, one of its key markets, without a license.
In October last, there were reports that ByteDance, the Chinese tech company that owns TikTok, significantly changed its approach to AI hardware by using Huawei chips to train its latest AI model.
While not a technological breakthrough, the 910C offers performance comparable to the H100 chip, which was banned from sale in China in 2022 by US authorities. Huawei has already distributed samples and is accepting orders, though the company has not publicly confirmed shipment details.
Last year, 01.AI chief Kai-Fu Lee said, “We were six or seven years behind.” But now, China seems to be ahead of the US.
The chip is manufactured by China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) using its N+2 7nm process technology, despite low yield rates. Some 910C units reportedly use chips originally made by Taiwan’s TSMC for Sophgo, prompting a U.S. investigation.
Last month, the Chinese embassy in the US even said in a post on X that US President Donald Trump’s imposition of new tariffs on Chinese imports will not affect China. “If war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.”
With US restrictions limiting access to NVIDIA’s advanced AI products, Huawei’s 910C is anticipated to become the primary hardware platform for China’s AI development and deployment efforts.