Huawei is set to test its most advanced AI chip yet—the Ascend 910D—aiming to rival Nvidia’s H100 and strengthen China’s push for semiconductor independence.
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| Huawei’s new AI chip, the Ascend 910D, may challenge Nvidia's dominance as China ramps up self-reliant tech innovations under U.S. trade restrictions. |
SHENZHEN, China — April 28, 2025:
Huawei Technologies is preparing to test its most powerful artificial intelligence chip to date—the Ascend 910D—as part of its broader strategy to reduce reliance on U.S. technology and rival the capabilities of Nvidia, the dominant player in AI computing.
Sources familiar with the project told The Wall Street Journal that Huawei has reached out to Chinese tech firms to begin testing the Ascend 910D for technical feasibility. The first samples of the chip are expected to be distributed by late May, though the project remains in its early stages. Multiple performance tests are still required before any commercial deployment can take place.
Huawei aims for the new processor to surpass Nvidia’s H100 chip, a flagship AI model released in 2022 widely used in large-scale machine learning and generative AI training. Previous entries in Huawei’s AI portfolio include the Ascend 910B and 910C, which are already in use across state-owned telecom carriers and AI companies such as ByteDance.
The initiative underscores China's growing determination to achieve semiconductor self-sufficiency as Western sanctions continue to restrict its access to advanced chip-making tools. Huawei, headquartered in Shenzhen and blacklisted by the U.S. government since 2019, has emerged as a leader in domestic chip development. The company made headlines in 2023 with the surprise release of its Mate 60 smartphone, powered by a domestically-produced chip, during a high-profile U.S. visit by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
The U.S. further tightened export controls in April, restricting sales of Nvidia’s H20 chip—the most advanced it could legally sell to Chinese firms without a license. Nvidia anticipates a $5.5 billion revenue hit from the latest sanctions, opening market opportunities for Chinese chipmakers like Huawei and Cambricon Technologies.
Huawei is expected to ship over 800,000 units of its Ascend 910B and 910C chips this year, with rising demand already prompting some clients to increase their orders. The company is also innovating around its chip architecture, introducing the CloudMatrix 384 system earlier this month. This platform links 384 Ascend 910C processors and is claimed by analysts to outperform Nvidia’s Blackwell-based rack system under specific conditions, though it comes with higher energy demands.
“Having five times as many Ascends more than offsets each GPU being only one-third the performance of an Nvidia Blackwell,” noted research firm SemiAnalysis. “The power inefficiency is a challenge, but not a limiting factor within China.”
As geopolitical tensions persist and technology decoupling continues, Huawei’s ambitious push into AI hardware signals a new phase in the global chip race—one increasingly shaped by national strategies, innovation under pressure, and the shifting contours of digital power.