3 hours Ago By Joseph Waring
Huawei continued to defy widening US trade sanctions, with The Wall Street Journal reporting the company plans to test an AI processor in the early development stage targeted at becoming a replacement for Nvidia chips facing export controls to China.The Chinese company is lining up customers to test the technical feasibility of the Ascend 910D chip, which it is positioning to be more powerful than Nvidia’s H100 chip, which was banned in China in late 2023, the newspaper wrote.The first samples are expected to be released next month.
Huawei also is scheduled to start shipments of its 910C AI chip to domestic customers in May, The Wall Street Journal wrote.Founder of industry blog Radio Free Mobile Richard Windsor suggested Huawei is likely to remain stuck at 7nm with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), as it is at the limits of what multi-patterning can produce.He added the sudden acceleration of product development is driven by “the deepening rift between the West and China” and mainland’s need to cut its dependence on Western technology.
In August 2023, Huawei sent shockwaves across the industry by unveiling the Mate 60 Pro powered by its Kirin 9000s chipset. The use of a homegrown main processor, designed by the company’s chip unit HiSilicon and produced by SMIC using a 7nm process, was promoted in China as a major win over US export controls.Huawei is blocked from importing 5G chips.
Since then, the US Department of Commerce has added a number of new restrictions on the sale of AI chips to China.Following the first US export curbs on AI chips, Nvidia reconfigured its high-end H100 for the China market. Earlier this month, the US has also required an export licence for the lower-end H20 chip designed for China.
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