By Josh Ye
HONG KONG (Reuters) – U.S. curbs on the gross sales of superior synthetic chips by Nvidia to China are creating a gap for Huawei to win market share, with sources saying it gained a sizeable AI chip order from Chinese language tech big Baidu this 12 months.
Higher recognized globally for its telecoms and smartphones companies, Huawei has for the previous 4 years been constructing an AI chip line.
Here’s what we learn about its Ascend AI chip sequence, and its major product to rival Nvidia’s A100 chip, the 910B.
WHY AND HOW DID HUAWEI ENTER THE AI CHIP BUSINESS?
Huawei first unveiled its Ascend 910 in 2018 and the chip was formally launched in 2019 as a part of a method to construct a full-stack AI portfolio and change into a supplier of computing energy. That very same 12 months, the corporate grew to become the goal of U.S. export controls.
On the time, Huawei claimed that its chip was the world’s strongest AI processor and Chinese language media experiences mentioned the unique Ascend 910 was manufactured on a 7 nanometer course of.
Huawei mentioned the chip may ship 256 TeraFLOPS for half-precision floating level (FP16) operations and 512 TeraOPS for integer precision calculations (INT8).
The corporate additionally touted the chip’s effectivity, saying that its max energy consumption was 310W which it mentioned had exceeded Huawei’s unique goal at 350W.
The chip, nonetheless, did not dent Nvidia’s dominance each inside and out of doors China. Nvidia launched its A100 and H100 chips in 2020 and 2022 respectively which swept up nearly all of the AI chip market share globally, a pattern supercharged by the emergence of generative AI.
Specialists mentioned Nvidia loved a large incumbent benefit over Huawei, with one key edge being the reliance of present AI initiatives on Nvidia’s software program ecosystem. Whereas Huawei has its personal ecosystem model known as CANN, analysts say it’s far more restricted by way of the AI fashions it’s able to coaching.
WHAT IS THE LATEST CHIP, THE 910B?
Huawei has not formally introduced the Ascend 910B, a more moderen model of the 910, however some particulars in regards to the chip have emerged in public feedback by some Chinese language corporations and lecturers, in addition to in technical guides on Huawei’s web site.
In August, the chairman of Chinese language AI big iFlyTek, Liu Qingfeng, praised Huawei for producing a GPU that he mentioned was “mainly the identical as Nvidia’s A100” and mentioned iFlyTek was working with Huawei to develop a {hardware}.
Chinese language media outlet Yicai later reported that the {hardware} was powered by Ascend 910B, which had not been beforehand recognized.
Reuters additionally discovered that paperwork associated to Ascend 910B, such driver and firmware improve guides, began showing on Huawei’s web site this August.
Final month, throughout iFlyTek’s earnings name, Senior Vice President Jiang Tao as soon as once more mentioned the Ascend 910B’s capabilities have been “similar to Nvidia’s A100”.
Baidu ordered 1,600 of Huawei 910B chips for 200 servers in August, one supply advised Reuters.
Analysts and sources say that the 910B chips are similar to Nvidia’s by way of uncooked computing energy, however they nonetheless lag behind in efficiency. Nonetheless, they’re seen as probably the most refined home choice obtainable in China.
WHY DOES THIS MATTER FOR HUAWEI AND CHINA?
Analysts have estimated China’s AI chip market to be price $7 billion and grabbing market share from Nvidia may mark a win for Huawei in opposition to america.
Huawei has reiterated the way it needs to change into a key supplier of computing energy for AI, with Chief Monetary Officer Meng Wanzhou saying in September that Huawei needed to construct a computing base for China and provides the world a “second choice”, in a veiled reference to dominant supplier america.
Within the absence of Nvidia chips, China’s AI corporations must depend on home merchandise like Huawei’s much less highly effective chips, however analysts say that it may very well be solely a matter of time earlier than Huawei is ready to shut this hole, given the quantity of assist and funding the Chinese language authorities is pouring into AI and semiconductors.
(Reporting by Josh Ye; Modifying by Brenda Goh and Miral Fahmy)
