Huawei is Testing the Latest AI Chip Ascend 910D, Challenging Nvidia’s Position in the High-End Market While Responding to U.S. Sanctions and Promoting China’s Semiconductor Independence
(Background: Trump backstabbed Jensen Huang! Nvidia H20 “It’s No Use to Talk About It First” was banned by the U.S., losing 5.5 billion dollars. How will the negotiations inform TSMC’s future?)
(Context: U.S. Customs seized Bitcoin mining machines mistakenly identifying them as Huawei RF products, prompting TSMC to touch the ban, which has now been fully released, benefiting mining companies.)
At a time when global semiconductor competition is intensifying, Chinese tech giant Huawei is actively advancing its latest AI processor—the Ascend 910D. This chip is seen as a key step for Huawei to challenge the dominance of U.S. chip leader Nvidia in the high-end product market. According to reports from the Wall Street Journal and other media, Huawei has collaborated with several Chinese tech companies to test the feasibility of the Ascend 910D, with plans to deliver samples to partners by the end of May 2025 at the earliest. It is claimed that the key AI computing power of this chip could rival Nvidia’s H100 launched three years ago.
Huawei’s Goal: Outperform the H100
Huawei has designed the Ascend 910D to compete with Nvidia’s H100 chip launched in 2022. In addition to aiming to match overall computing power metrics, Huawei also targets specific areas for potential superiority. The older Huawei Ascend series chips (such as the 910B and 910C) have seen strong demand in the domestic market, with expectations that shipments will exceed 800,000 units by 2025, covering major Chinese state-owned telecom operators and large AI developers like ByteDance.
Despite facing external trade pressures, Huawei’s Ascend ecosystem is gradually establishing an advantage amid U.S.-China rivalry. However, Huawei also admits that its chip manufacturing capabilities are still constrained by process levels compared to Nvidia, mainly relying on domestic foundry partner SMIC’s 7nm process. This creates a gap compared to Nvidia’s ability to utilize TSMC’s more advanced processes, leading to challenges in raw computing power and power efficiency for Huawei’s chips.
How China’s Semiconductors Can Break Through
Since being placed on the U.S. trade blacklist in 2019, Huawei has faced persistent obstacles in acquiring advanced semiconductor technology. The U.S. has continually escalated export restrictions, including limitations on the sale of high-end AI chips like Nvidia’s H20 to China, severely impacting Chinese companies’ access to top-tier computing power, which has forced China to accelerate its semiconductor self-research and development process, creating a kind of “counter-push force.”
Huawei has also adjusted its strategy, no longer solely pursuing extreme performance for individual chips, but rather emphasizing the enhancement of overall computing power through the construction of more efficient integrated computing systems. For example, Huawei’s CloudMatrix 384 system can integrate a large number of Ascend chips for collaborative computation, aiming to bridge the performance gap of single chips. Although system integration presents new engineering and optimization challenges, it is a crucial direction for Huawei to seek breakthroughs under restrictions.
Outlook: The Future of the Global Tech Landscape
The goals and progress of Huawei’s Ascend 910D are, in fact, a microcosm of the deep geopolitical and technological struggle between the U.S. and China. U.S. sanctions are accelerating the localization and independence of China’s semiconductor industry chain, reshaping the global semiconductor supply chain landscape.
While sanctions may limit China’s technological development speed in the short term, they could also prompt China to establish an independent technological system, potentially causing U.S. companies to lose access to the vast Chinese market. The outcome of this semiconductor race will have far-reaching implications for the future of global AI development, technological innovation pathways, and the balance of international power. Whether Huawei’s Ascend 910D can achieve large-scale application not only affects Huawei’s own fate but may also serve as a key indicator of whether China can realize autonomy and control in critical technological fields and secure a place in the global tech landscape.
