Shanghai (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – On Thursday, Huawei laid out its long-term chip plans for the first time, announcing it would introduce the world’s most powerful computing clusters.
This move highlights China’s push to reduce its reliance on foreign semiconductor suppliers like Nvidia. After years of keeping its chip business under wraps, Huawei has finally broken the silence, revealing its plans for the Ascend AI chips and Kunpeng server chips in a move that could escalate the tech war between the US and China.
Eric Xu, Huawei’s current rotating chairman, also shared in a presentation that the company now has its own high-bandwidth memory.
“We will follow a 1-year release cycle and double compute with each release,”
Xu told the annual Huawei Connect meeting in the commercial hub of Shanghai.
How are Chinese regulators cracking down on Nvidia’s dominance
On the other hand, China has recently intensified its efforts against Nvidia, the world’s leading AI chipmaker, while promoting its own chip manufacturing capabilities.
The Chinese charged Nvidia with breaking the country’s antitrust laws. Online regulators have also instructed major tech companies to stop buying Nvidia’s AI chips and cancel any existing orders.
Nvidia is accused of violating conditions during the acquisition process intended to prevent anti-competitive actions and ensure the supply chain to China, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) announced. This announcement was made in the middle of US-China trade negotiations and marked a significant escalation of tension between the two countries.
How did US sanctions push Huawei toward domestic chipmaking?
Huawei initially announced plans to venture into chip-making in 2018, but kept those plans covert after being sanctioned by the U.S. in 2019. The U.S. government accused Huawei of being a national security threat, which Huawei denies. The U.S. banned most exports of American technology and components to Huawei, including crucial semiconductor manufacturing tools and chips.
The sanctions stifled Huawei’s ability to access advanced semiconductor technology and U.S. suppliers, so it diverted its energy to building domestic chip-making capabilities in China.
