Huawei isn't stopping when it comes to giving NVIDIA a tough competition in the Chinese market, as the firm has unveiled its next-gen Ascend 920 chip.
Huawei's Ascend 920 AI Chip Seen As a Viable Alternative To NVIDIA's H20, Team Green Is Losing Ground In The Chinese AI Market
There's no doubt that Team Green is the leading firm in providing AI hardware, but it seems like the balance is tilting towards the likes of Huawei and others. Recently, we reported on how NVIDIA is now barred from exporting its H20 AI accelerator to China, which is gaining massive adoption from domestic tech giants. This has created a new opportunity for Huawei to step up its AI solutions, and with this, the Chinese tech giant has unveiled its new AI chip, the Ascend 920 (via DigiTimes).
The details about the chip are confined for now, but it is revealed that the Ascend 920 is a direct competitor to NVIDIA's H20, given that special focus has been made on ensuring that the supply chain is entirely an "in-house" one. The accelerator is claimed to utilize SMIC's 6nm process, which is an upgrade over the Ascend 910C, which featured 7nm. In terms of performance, it is claimed that the Ascend 920 will feature 900 TFLOPS, a memory bandwidth of 4,000 GB/s, and a chiplet design similar to the Ascend 910C.
It is claimed that Huawei's new chip is around 30%- 40% faster than the previous generation, and considering this, it could be concluded that the Ascend 920 is superior to NVIDIA's H20. However, we should wait and see actual testing by third-party reviewers to ensure that the performance claims are valid here. Interestingly, this development only came one day after the new export controls on NVIDIA, which shows that Huawei is determined to be the leading hardware supplier in the region.
Apart from individual chips, Huawei has also made huge strides in the AI cluster segment. The firm's CloudMatrix 384 system, which is based on the Ascend 910C chips, is said to be faster in performance compared to NVIDIA's "cutting-edge" GB200 NVL72 system. This validates the fact that Huawei plans to go all out in the AI segment, while NVIDIA is still finding trouble with export regulations and maintaining its position in China.
About the author: Muhammad Zuhair is a hardware and technology reporter for Wccftech, specializing in the semiconductor industry and the complex interplay between technology, manufacturing, and geopolitics. His coverage focuses on the corporate strategies and technological roadmaps of industry giants like TSMC, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Intel. Zuhair's expertise lies in deconstructing complex topics such as fabrication nodes (e.g., 2nm process), the economic impact of policies like the CHIPS Act, and the strategic development of AI infrastructure from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.
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