“Huawei has not yet presented the latest version of its “910B” chip. But the first details have become public. This means that the controversial Chinese company is once again in the spotlight.
Due to stricter requirements in the United States for technology exports to the People's Republic, Chinese companies are intensifying their development of special chips for artificial intelligence (AI). They want to steal market share from the world market leader Nvidia, which, according to experts, wants to meet the new requirements with processors developed specifically for China.
One of Nvidia's Chinese competitors is Huawei, which is primarily known as a telecommunications equipment supplier and smartphone provider. According to insiders, the company, which is controversial in Western countries, recently received an order worth the equivalent of almost 58 million euros to deliver 1,600 special AI chips to Baidu. With "Ernie", Google's rival has a promising candidate in the race to compete with the AI software ChatGPT from the US company OpenAI.
Why did Huawei get into the AI chip business?
Huawei announced its plans for an AI chip in 2018 and officially presented the first chip the following year. At the same time, the company was placed on a US blacklist because of possible espionage for the Chinese government. According to Huawei, the "Ascend AI 910" introduced in 2019 was the most powerful AI chip in the world at the time. It uses less electricity than initially planned. However, little changed in Nvidia's market dominance both inside and outside of China. According to experts, the US company controls around 80 percent of the global market with its “A100” and “H100” chips, which came onto the market in 2020 and 2022, respectively. One reason for this is that many AI developers rely on Nvidia's existing software ecosystem in their work. Huawei's corresponding programs lagged behind technologically.
What's new about the "910B" chip?
Huawei has not yet officially presented the latest version of the AI chip, the “910B”. However, some details became public through statements from Chinese companies or researchers as well as through technical information on the Huawei website. The head of the Chinese AI specialist iFlyTek said in August 2023 that the new Huawei processors were technologically on par with the “A100” from Nvidia. According to analysts and insiders, this is true in terms of pure computing power, but not in terms of overall performance. The “910B” is the best AI chip available in China.
Why is Huawei committed to AI chips?
Experts believe the Chinese market for AI processors is worth $7 billion. According to its own statements, Huawei wants to cut off as large a piece of this pie as possible and also provide customers around the world with an alternative to Nvidia products. Analysts assume that thanks to government funding programs worth billions, Huawei will soon be able to catch up with the technological gap to its Western competitors." [1]
1. Wie Huawei bei KI-Chips Marktanteile gewinnen will. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH. Dec 11, 2023.
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