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China to see major shift to Huawei for AI model training in 2027

Huawei Technologies expects a major domestic shift towards its artificial intelligence computing infrastructure for model training next year, as its Ascend processors gain ground on Nvidia in China.

4 min readRead the original reporting
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Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The broad field of building systems that perform tasks requiring pattern recognition, reasoning, language, or decision-making.
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What happened

Huawei Technologies expects a major domestic shift towards its artificial intelligence computing infrastructure for model training next year, as its Ascend processors gain ground on Nvidia in China. Rotating chairman Eric Xu Zhijun stated that starting from next year, a lot of the AI model training will be based on the SuperPoD or SuperCluster based on Ascend 950DT. Huawei's proprietary Ascend chips have overtaken Nvidia in domestic market share, although specific figures were not provided. Huawei has been pushing its own alternative computing infrastructure amid US export controls that were designed to restrict China's access to advanced semiconductors, such as those from Nvidia.

Huawei Technologies expects a major domestic shift towards its artificial intelligence computing infrastructure for model training next year, as its Ascend processors gain ground on Nvidia in China.

Rotating chairman Eric Xu Zhijun stated that starting from next year, a lot of the AI model training will be based on the SuperPoD or SuperCluster based on Ascend 950DT.

Huawei's proprietary Ascend chips have overtaken Nvidia in domestic market share, although specific figures were not provided.

Huawei has been pushing its own alternative computing infrastructure amid US export controls that were designed to restrict China's access to advanced semiconductors, such as those from Nvidia.

Source details: amp.scmp.com ↗

Why it matters

This shift in AI model training could have significant implications for the global AI industry, particularly in the context of US-China relations. Huawei's Ascend processors gaining ground on Nvidia in China could be seen as a major victory for the Chinese tech giant, and a setback for Nvidia. The shift could also have implications for the development of AI in China, with Huawei's Ascend processors potentially becoming the dominant force in the country's AI landscape.

This shift in AI model training could have significant implications for the global AI industry, particularly in the context of US-China relations.

Huawei's Ascend processors gaining ground on Nvidia in China could be seen as a major victory for the Chinese tech giant, and a setback for Nvidia.

The shift could also have implications for the development of AI in China, with Huawei's Ascend processors potentially becoming the dominant force in the country's AI landscape.

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Model Parameter Size:8B Parameters
VRAM Required5.5 GBGPU memory footprint
Target HardwareMacBook / Single GPUDeployment tier
Privacy100% Air-GappedLocal device capability
Core takeaway: Small, quantized models (3B–8B) now run directly inside smartphones and laptops with complete data privacy, while mammoth 400B+ models remain the domain of datacenter clusters.
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What to watch next

The impact of this shift on the global AI industry, particularly in the context of US-China relations. The development of AI in China, and the potential dominance of Huawei's Ascend processors in the country's AI landscape.

The impact of this shift on the global AI industry, particularly in the context of US-China relations.

The development of AI in China, and the potential dominance of Huawei's Ascend processors in the country's AI landscape.

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