Huawei revealed major plans for its AI chips, demonstrating the central role the technology plays in both the company and China’s drive for tech independence.
On Thursday, rotating chair Eric Xu unveiled the next generation of Huawei’s Ascend AI chips. The plan begins with the Ascend 950PR. It arrives in the first quarter of 2026. Later that year, Huawei will release the Ascend 950DT. The series moves on to the Ascend 960 in late 2027, and the Ascend 970 follows in late 2028. All of these processors will use Huawei’s own high-bandwidth memory.
Huawei Announces 3-Year AI Chips to Rival Nvidia
The firm also displayed fresh SuperPoD cluster setups. These connect thousands of Ascend chips into one giant system. Xu called them a unified smart unit that learns, reasons, and thinks as one. He said Huawei’s Atlas 950 SuperPoD will stay the top performer worldwide for years. It beats competitors in all main ways.
Huawei uses this cluster method to challenge Nvidia. Nvidia rules the AI chip market. U.S. restrictions bar Huawei from top tools by firms like TSMC. So Huawei turns to smart packing and big chip groups to close the speed gap.
This year, Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, said their chips lag U.S. ones by a full step. Yet he noted clever packing can help catch up.
AI chip race in China
Huawei isn’t by itself. Firms like Cambricon, Baidu, and Alibaba build their own AI chips too. Small startups push local making. Large tech players craft chips for their AI tools.
This hope boosts Chinese tech shares. SMIC stock, which builds Huawei’s Ascend chips, climbed 35% in the last month. Cambricon and Baidu shares soared almost 50% in that time.
The surge picked up after DeepSeek, a Hangzhou startup, dropped an open AI model this year. Xu lauded their low-power training style. Still, he warned that top AI, like general intelligence, needs vast computing power.
Geopolitical backdrop
Homegrown AI chips matter more since 2022. That’s when the U.S. stopped Nvidia and AMD from selling peak chips to China. Those firms made toned-down versions for China. They beat local options at first.
But views shift now. Beijing told tech firms to drop Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D chip, made just for China. Officials flagged the H20 chip before that. This boosts Huawei’s Ascend chips in China’s AI path.
Huawei’s roadmap signals not just the company’s ambitions, but also China’s determination to secure its own technological foundation in the AI era.
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