Reports are circulating that Huawei’s Ascend AI chips, notably the Ascend 910C, are struggling to gain traction in China’s AI market, with some calling them subpar. The chips are reportedly plagued by overheating issues, which is a big red flag for reliability and has put off major Chinese tech firms, many of whom are Huawei’s rivals and wary of adopting its tech. Huawei’s software, the Compute Architecture for Neural Networks (CANN), is also lagging behind NVIDIA’s CUDA platform. CUDA’s well-established ecosystem and developer-friendly tools create a lock-in effect, making it tough for Huawei to compete, as CANN struggles with compatibility and performance. While U.S. restrictions on NVIDIA’s H20 GPUs have given Huawei a slight edge in China, its global ambitions are hamstrung by sanctions and supply chain woes. Production yields for the 910C, built on SMIC’s 7nm process, are reportedly stuck at around 30%, limiting scalability. Despite Huawei’s claims that the 910C rivals NVIDIA’s H100, these issues—overheating, weaker software, and geopolitical barriers—mean it’s got a steep hill to climb to challenge NVIDIA’s dominance in the AI chip race.
Don't count out the new Nvidia B20 (H20 replacement). Imo Nvidia is very much still in the China market. It's also a reminder-CUDA is king, not just the chip. 7nm vs TSMC 2nm/5nm and yields at 90%. Maybe Huawei needs some DLC