Huawei Technologies plans to introduce new AI technology this week, challenging US export control restrictions, as it seeks to overtake Nvidia in China and compete internationally.
Huawei's rotating chairman Wang Tao is set to unveil its forthcoming Ascend 960 AI chips, slated for commercial release in 2027, during the annual summit in Shanghai.
Key factors that analysts will pay attention to include if the new element will possess sufficient power for training cutting-edge AI models.
Huawei aims to guarantee that its Ascend chips can support every AI model, both within China and internationally, stated the company’s supervisory board chairman Guo Ping during an internal meeting for new employees earlier this month.
Huawei has already been making progress both domestically and internationally. DeepSeek intends to install a minimum of 160,000 Huawei Ascend 950DT chips at a data center it is constructing in Inner Mongolia to run its models. Huawei is additionally investigating international markets such as Malaysia and Egypt.
The Chinese telecommunications and smartphone company is leading Beijing's efforts for independence in essential technologies amidst prolonged limitations intended to undermine China's ambitions in chip production.
It is spearheading a Beijing-supported effort to promote the Chinese technology stack internationally as the world's two superpowers compete for geopolitical supremacy globally.
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Ascend 960 will replace Huawei’s existing Ascend 950 series of AI accelerators, with the 950DT preferred by DeepSeek featuring faster, higher-capacity memory for intensive AI inference tasks. A new enhanced version, Ascend 970, is set for 2028, as the Shenzhen-based firm recently revealed during the initiation of a three-year effort to surpass Nvidia. Every new generation of chips will double the computing power compared to the last one.
However, Huawei's AI chips are falling behind Nvidia's superior products. Leading Chinese AI laboratories such as DeepSeek continue to depend significantly on chips from US firms for training their models, which they subsequently run using more locally produced semiconductors, highlighting the difficulty Beijing encounters in fully disengaging from Western technology.
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Simultaneously, Nvidia’s most advanced chips are still being smuggled into China, though in limited amounts. A limitation in production capacity is hindering Huawei from meeting the surging demand for computing power in a market that Morgan Stanley predicts could hit 646 billion yuan ($96 billion) by 2030.
Nvidia's latest Blackwell processors cannot be directly obtained in China. Huawei has recently increased the price of the Ascend 950DT chip by 60 percent, attributing this to a limited supply of components in discussions with clients.
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In order to address its shortcomings, Huawei has been seeking innovative approaches, such as the newly revealed LogicFolding technique, to enhance its chip technology without top-tier equipment.