Huawei unveils multi-year plan for high-performance Ascend chip series, aiming to develop in-house High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) capable of delivering up to 1.6 Terabytes per second bandwidth.
Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, has unveiled its ambitious chip strategy, aiming to reduce its reliance on foreign technology and challenge industry leader Nvidia. The company has announced its first official long-range Ascend chip strategy, with four new parts scheduled over the next three years.
At the heart of Huawei's strategy is the Ascend 950PR chip, scheduled to ship in Q1 next year. This chip features 128GB of Huawei's in-house HBM, delivering up to 1.6 TB/s of bandwidth. Another significant addition to the lineup is the Ascend 950DT, scheduled for 2027, boasting 144GB of Huawei's in-house HBM and promising up to 4 TB/s of bandwidth.
However, Huawei's roadmap for its chip strategy includes a ban on procuring Nvidia stock, and the company has not disclosed how its in-house HBM is manufactured, what packaging is used, or which foundry is producing the chip. The success of Huawei's strategy depends on a platform that can match Nvidia stock price, but currently, Huawei does not have a platform that can match Nvidia in training, efficiency, and model throughput.
To challenge Nvidia stock, Huawei needs a proven end-to-end platform. To this end, Huawei plans to deploy new "supernodes" that will house thousands of Ascend chips. The Atlas 950 system is expected to debut in Q4 this year, and the Atlas 960 system is planned for a future release. These systems, on paper, rival Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 configurations in deployment scale.
The Chinese government is urging Huawei to develop more domestic technology, and the company is facing demands to produce more domestic silicon. If Huawei is working with domestic fabs, yields and bandwidth may prove to be hugely limiting factors. Currently, Huawei is facing challenges in developing a platform that can compete with Nvidia's offerings.
Huawei's partnership with TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is a significant part of its strategy. TSMC is responsible for manufacturing Huawei's 2-nm chips, including the Huawei-Ascend chips, including the Ascend 950PR scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2026. However, due to U.S. sanctions, Huawei is barred from accessing TSMC's advanced nodes and CoWoS packaging lines.
The success of Huawei's chip strategy is not just about plans and partnerships. Plans alone do not break bottlenecks for the roadmap to succeed. Huawei is barred from accessing TSMC's advanced nodes and CoWoS packaging lines due to U.S. sanctions, and the company has not disclosed the foundry producing the Ascend chips. Overcoming these challenges will be crucial for Huawei to realise its ambitions of rivalling Nvidia in the AI chip market.
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