Huawei singled out by Nvidia as a top competitor in AI for the first time،
Apart from Mozart The Zauber Flute (The Magic Flute) and some Pink Floyd albums, AI is as close to magic as a civilization can get. But for the magic to happen, we need AI chips: there's an entire AI infrastructure that keeps the AI lights on and ensures that the Galaxy AI tools in our Galaxy S24, for example, work properly. Currently, Nvidia dominates the AI market, but there is competition ahead.
Nvidia identifies Huawei as a leading competitor in AI chip production (and several other areas) for the first time in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, reports Reuters.
This comes just hours after it was reported that the Biden administration was ramping up pressure on China's most sanctioned chipmaker – Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC). US authorities are set to block SMIC's most advanced factory from receiving more US imports. Indeed, SMIC produced a sophisticated chip for Huawei's Mate 60 Pro, people familiar with the matter said.
Nvidia pointed out that Huawei competes in supplying chips designed for AI, such as graphics processing units (GPUs), central processing units (CPUs) and networking chips. NVIDIA also identified Huawei as a cloud services company designing its own hardware and software to improve AI computing, the report said.
Huawei's most sought-after chips are those from the Ascend series. The Chinese company's main product, the 910B chip, is its main rival to Nvidia's A100 chip, which was launched about three years ago.
This is the same chip manufacturing that Huawei has decided to prioritize in its high-end Mate 60 phones.
You see, Huawei uses the same facility that produces both its Ascend AI chips and the Kirin chips that power the Mate 60 Pro and, according to insiders, production has been crippled by a low yield rate. Yield is the percentage of acceptable chips produced relative to the maximum number of chips on a wafer.
Huawei developed the Ascend series of chips to compete with Nvidia's line of AI chips. Analysts estimate that China's AI chip market is worth $7 billion.
