Huawei Technologies plans to start mass shipments of its advanced 910C AI chip to Chinese customers as early as next month, two people familiar with the matter said. Some shipments have already taken place, they added.
The timing is fortuitous for Chinese AI companies, which have been left scrambling for domestic alternatives to the H20, the main AI chip that Nvidia was until recently allowed to sell freely in the Chinese market.
This month, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump told Nvidia that sales of the H20 would require an export license.
Huawei’s 910C, a graphics processing unit (GPU), represents an architectural evolution rather than a technological revolution, according to one of the two people and a third source familiar with its design.
Huawei’s “Answer”
The new chip achieves performance comparable to Nvidia’s H100 chip by combining two 910B processors into a single package through advanced integration techniques, they said. That means it has twice the computing power and memory capacity of the 910B, and it also has incremental improvements, including enhanced support for a variety of AI workload data.
Seeking to limit China’s technological development, particularly advances for its military, Washington has cut China off from Nvidia’s most advanced AI products, including its flagship B200 chip.
The H100 chip, for example, was banned from sale in China in 2022 by US authorities before it was even released.
This has allowed Huawei and Chinese GPU startups such as Moore Threads and Iluvatar CoreX to go after a market largely dominated by Nvidia.
The latest US Commerce Department export restrictions on Nvidia’s H20 will mean Huawei’s Ascend 910C GPU will now become the hardware of choice for (Chinese) AI model developers and for developing inference capabilities.
TSMC probe
Late last year, Huawei distributed samples of the 910C to various technology companies and began taking orders, sources said.
At least some of Huawei’s 910Cs use chips made by Taiwanese contract chipmaker TSMC (2330.TW), opening a new tab for China’s Sophgo, according to one of the sources and a fourth person.
The US Department of Commerce is investigating TSMC’s work for Sophgo after one of the chips manufactured by TSMC was found in a 910B processor.
TSMC has manufactured nearly three million chips in recent years that matched the design ordered by Sophgo.
