Huawei Technologies (Hwt.ul) He plans to start making mass shipments of his advanced artificial intelligence chip 910C to Chinese clients from next month, according to two people familiar with the subject. They added that some shipments have already been made.
The moment is favorable for Chinese AI companies, which have been forced to look for national alternatives to H20, the main artificial intelligence chip that NVIDIA (NVDA.O) had allowed to sell freely in the Chinese market until recently. Consequently, the S&P 500 giant sank almost 5%.
This month, the administration of US President Donald Trump informed NVIDIA that H20 sales will require an export license.
The 910C of Huawei, a graphic processing unit (GPU), represents an architectural evolution rather than a technological advance, according to one of the two people and a third source familiar with its design. The chip achieves a performance comparable to that of NVIDIA H100 by combining two 910b processors in a single package by advanced integration techniques, they said. This gives you the double computing and memory capacity as 910b, in addition to incremental improvements, such as a better support for various types of workloads in artificial intelligence.
All sources asked not to be identified because No They are authorized to talk to the media. Huawei refused to comment on what he described as “speculations” about the 910c shipping plans and their capabilities.
With the aim of curbing the technological development of China, especially the advances applicable to the military sector, Washington restricted China’s access to the most advanced products in Nvidiaincluding its B200 flagship chip. The H100 chip, for example, was prohibited in China by US authorities in 2022, even before its launch.
Huawei challenges Nvidia
This situation allowed Huawei and Chinese Startups of GPU as Moore Threads and Iluvatar Corex enter a market that until now was mainly through Nvidia.
“The latest restrictions of the US Department of Commerce on NVIDIA H20 chip imply that the Huawei Ascend 910C GPU will now become the preferred hardware by the developers of Chinese AI models and to deploy inference capabilities,” said Paul Triolo, partner of the albright state consultant Stonebridge Group.
At the end of last year, Huawei distributed 910C samples to several technology companies and began accepting ordersaccording to sources. Reuters could not confirm which companies will be in charge of 910c production.
The Chinese SMIC (0981.hk) is manufacturing some of the main components of these GPU using its N+2 process technology of 7 nanometers, although with low production yields, a source previously indicated.
At least some of Huawei’s 910c GPUS use semiconductors made by TSMC (2330.TW) for Chinese company Sophgo, according to one of the sources and a fourth person. The US Department of Commerce was investigating the work done by the Taiwanese giant of manufacturing of chips per contract for Sophgo, after one of the chips manufactured by TSMC was found in a 910b processor.
TSMC produced about three million chips in recent years that coincide with the design requested by Sophgo, According to Lennart Heim, researcher at the Technology, Security and Policy Center of the Think Tank Rand in Arlington, Virginia, who closely follows Chinese advances in AI.
Huawei He reiterated that he did not use chips manufactured by TSMC for Sophgo. Sophgo did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
TSMCon the other hand, he assured that he meets the regulatory requirements and that he has not supplied chips to Huawei since mid -September 2020.
Source: Ambito
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