- US bans Nvidia's H20 simply as Huawei reveals its next-gen Ascend 920 AI chip
- Ascend 920 could fill China’s AI chip hole publish restrictions
- Nvidia faces $5.5 billion hit as Huawei seizes alternative
On April 9, 2025, the US introduced plans to additional tighten restrictions on AI chip exports to China, together with Nvidia's H20 processor, a reduced-performance chip which the corporate created to adjust to earlier US export rules whereas persevering with gross sales in China.
Huawei, which has been positioning itself as China’s reply to Nvidia for a while, was doubtless ready for the announcement as a result of simply at some point later, at a accomplice convention, it revealed the Ascend 920, its next-generation AI chip.
Set to enter mass manufacturing within the second half of 2025, based on DigiTimes Asia, the chip is anticipated to be constructed on SMIC’s 6nm course of and supply as much as 900 TFLOPs of BF16 compute and 4000GB/s of reminiscence bandwidth, supported by HBM3 reminiscence modules. It can additionally assist PCIe 5.0 and next-generation interconnect protocols to assist large-model coaching.
An efficient different
With the Nvidia H20 now restricted in China, trade analysts imagine Huawei’s new chip might bridge the hole.
Though real-world benchmarks are usually not but accessible, the Ascend 920’s specs counsel it may very well be an efficient different to Nvidia's H20 and could also be welcomed by Chinese language corporations like Tencent and ByteDance, which can now require substitutes for the restricted chip.
Whereas the present Ascend 910C is estimated to ship about 60% of the Nvidia H100’s inference efficiency, the Ascend 920 reportedly improves coaching effectivity by 30% to 40% and is tailor-made for Transformer and Combination of Specialists fashions.
Nvidia had been making robust gross sales in China by means of the H20, with gross sales reportedly rising 50% quarter over quarter earlier than the ban. The brand new license requirement from the U.S. Division of Commerce successfully halts these gross sales, and Nvidia is anticipated to write down off $5.5 billion in misplaced enterprise in consequence.
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Huawei additionally introduced its AI CloudMatrix 384 Supernode resolution on the similar occasion.
This rack-scale platform, described as a 'Nuclear-level product', reportedly exceeds the efficiency of Nvidia’s GB200 however consumes extra energy, one thing that’s not seen as a serious concern in China in comparison with the West.
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