At the World AI Conference that opened in Shanghai on Saturday, Huawei emerged as China’s best hope for driving a domestic hardware sector for advanced artificial intelligence workloads. There, Huawei debuted its CloudMatrix 384 AI system, powered by 384 of its high-performance processors, the Ascend 910C GPUs. The setup has drawn favorable comparisons to Nvidia’s flagship supercomputing platform, the GB200 NVL72, a rack-scale solution for on-site AI and HPC tasks. Huawei’s new hardware reportedly drew large crowds to its booth, but the company declined to share detailed comments or live benchmarks, suggesting a tightly controlled public presentation. Continue reading Huawei May Challenge Nvidia with Its CloudMatrix AI System

China’s Huawei Technologies is getting ready to test its newest AI processor, which the company believes is powerful enough to replace high-end chips from U.S. rival Nvidia, whose top-tier products are prohibited from export to China due to a trade embargo. Huawei’s AI ambitions suggest a superpower competition over semiconductors gearing up despite the U.S. government’s attempt to stymie Beijing. Huawei expects to receive its first samples of its latest AI processor, the Ascend 910D, as early as next month, and is reportedly casting about for tech firms capable of testing it out. Continue reading Huawei’s Processor Could Chip Away at Nvidia Market Share