---
title: "Huawei Unveils AI Chip Pipeline as Tech Rivalry Heats Up"
description: "Huawei Technologies is set to launch a new generation of AI chips, the Ascend 950, in a bid to compete with Nvidia in China. The company plans to release the first chip in early 2024, followed by anot"
type: "news"
locale: "en"
url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/257875159.md"
published_at: "2025-09-18T09:20:29.000Z"
---

# Huawei Unveils AI Chip Pipeline as Tech Rivalry Heats Up

> Huawei Technologies is set to launch a new generation of AI chips, the Ascend 950, in a bid to compete with Nvidia in China. The company plans to release the first chip in early 2024, followed by another in late 2024, with additional upgrades planned for 2027 and 2028. Huawei aims to address the growing demand for computing power in China, especially as U.S. restrictions on semiconductor technologies create challenges for local AI developers. The new chips will utilize advanced bundling technology to enhance computing capabilities, positioning Huawei as a key player in the ongoing tech rivalry with Nvidia.

By Raffaele Huang and Sherry Qin

Huawei Technologies plans to roll out more artificial-intelligence chips in the next three years, giving a rare glimpse into its ambitions to compete with Nvidia in China.

The first will be a new generation of its Ascend chips, seen as a potential challenger to Nvidia's offerings in the country. As the U.S. tech giant faces more difficulty in doing business in China, local companies are vying to step in to fill the void.

Huawei announced its chip pipeline on Thursday, which includes two variants of the new lineup, called Ascend 950, that handle different AI workloads. The chips will use high-bandwidth memory units that Huawei develops, and support a computing format that is increasingly popular among Chinese AI developers.

"Computing power is, and will continue to be, key to AI. This is especially true in China," Huawei Deputy Chairman Eric Xu said at an event in Shanghai.

Huawei plans to release the first of the new chips in the first three months of next year, followed by another in the fourth quarter. It aims to roll out two upgraded lineups in 2027 and 2028.

"We will follow a one-year release cycle and double compute with each release," Xu said. He said Huawei is using the chip-making technology that is "practically available" to China to address the country's surging demand for computing.

The Chinese company also launched technology that can bundle thousands of chips, an advance it said could help address a bottleneck in large-scale AI computing infrastructure.

Washington has blacklisted Huawei since 2019, forcing the Chinese tech juggernaut to bet on its own alternatives. It has since become a key player in Beijing's national push for self-sufficiency, participating in projects to build a domestic semiconductor supply chain.

That has pitted Huawei against Nvidia as proxies in the escalating technology battle between Beijing and Washington. Since 2022, the U.S. government has restricted China's access to advanced semiconductor technologies. That has caused headaches for AI developers in China, but also prompted them to find workarounds.

Huawei's current Ascend AI chips still lag behind Nvidia's best products but the Chinese company has been investing in developing networking technology--an area it excelled in as a telecommunications equipment maker--to bundle more chips together to boost computing capabilities.

Huawei's latest supernode products, Atlas 950 and Atlas 960, can link 8,192 and 15,488 Ascend chips, respectively, it said. The chip-bundling technology can be used to build big groups of computers, known as clusters, containing up to a million of Huawei's AI chips and working together as a single system, the company said.

Building these types of clusters is key to training large-scale AI models. Nvidia's technology for connecting individual chips and facilitating data transfer has been a secret sauce that keeps global engineers--including those in China--addicted.

According to Xu, the new Huawei system built with the Atlas 950 supernode, which will be available in late 2026, will surpass a system that Nvidia plans to release in 2027.

Nvidia didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Write to Raffaele Huang at raffaele.huang@wsj.com and Sherry Qin at sherry.qin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 18, 2025 05:04 ET (09:04 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

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> **Disclaimer**: This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice.
