Chinese Companies Switch to Huawei AI Chips

Chinese companies are rapidly switching from NVIDIA to domestically made artificial intelligence chips amid tensions with the United States, and Huawei's in-house chips are now being used more widely than NVIDIA's products.
According to a survey of 60 executives from Chinese software, finance, manufacturing, and retail companies conducted by a U.S. media outlet on the 7th local time, Huawei's Ascend 910B/C had the highest adoption and evaluation rate among 12 accelerators tested in respondents' AI clusters, at 65%. That was higher than NVIDIA's China-specific chips, the H20/L20 chips, at 47%, and its older A800/H800 chips, also at 47%, both of which were downgraded to comply with U.S. export controls. It also exceeded Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD)'s MI308 chip, which came in at 55%.
Hygon's DCU chips, at 52%, and Cambricon Technologies' MLU/Xiyuan chips, also at 52%, posted higher adoption and evaluation rates than NVIDIA chips. Chips developed in-house by major platform companies, such as Baidu's Kunlunxin and Alibaba Group's T-Head, followed at 50%.
The report said, "China's efforts to replace foreign AI semiconductors with domestic alternatives are making progress, and this is likely to benefit local companies such as Huawei and Hygon." It added that China plans to allocate 2 trillion yuan, or about 450 trillion won, over the next five years for nationwide data center construction, and intends for domestic companies to supply at least 80% of key technologies, including semiconductors.
[email protected] Hong Chaewan Reporter