By Josh Ye
HONG KONG, Oct 20 (Reuters) – U.S. measures to restrict the export of superior synthetic intelligence (AI) chips to China could create a gap for Huawei Applied sciences [RIC:RIC:HWT.UL] to broaden in its $7 billion house market because the curbs power Nvidia to retreat, analysts say.
Whereas Nvidia NVDA.O has traditionally been the main supplier of AI chips in China with a market share exceeding 90%, Chinese language corporations together with Huawei have been creating their very own variations of Nvidia’s best-selling chips, together with the A100 and the H100 graphics processing items (GPU).
Huawei’s Ascend AI chips are corresponding to Nvidia’s when it comes to uncooked computing energy, analysts and a few AI corporations resembling China’s iFlyTek 002230.SZ say, however they nonetheless lag behind in efficiency.
Jiang Yifan, chief market analyst at brokerage Guotai Junan Securities, stated one other key limiting issue for Chinese language corporations was the reliance of most tasks on Nvidia’s chips and software program ecosystem, however that would change with the U.S. restrictions.
“This U.S. transfer, in my view, is definitely giving Huawei’s Ascend chips an enormous reward,” Jiang stated in a publish on his social media Weibo account.
This chance, nevertheless, comes with a number of challenges.
Many innovative AI tasks are constructed with CUDA, a preferred programming structure Nvidia has pioneered, which has in flip given rise to an enormous world ecosystem that has develop into able to coaching extremely refined AI fashions resembling OpenAI’s GPT-4.
Huawei personal model known as CANN, and analysts say it’s far more restricted when it comes to the AI fashions it’s able to coaching, which means that Huawei’s chips are removed from a plug-and-play substitute for Nvidia.
Woz Ahmed, a former chip design government turned guide, stated that for Huawei to win Chinese language purchasers from Nvidia, it should replicate the ecosystem Nvidia created, together with supporting purchasers to maneuver their knowledge and fashions to Huawei’s personal platform.
Mental property rights are additionally an issue, as many U.S. corporations already maintain key patents for GPUs, Ahmed stated.
“To get one thing that is within the ballpark, it’s 5 or 10 years,” he added.
Huawei and Nvidia didn’t instantly reply to Reuters’ requests for remark.
COMPUTING POWER
Huawei rolled out the primary Ascend GPUs that 12 months and it’s considered one of a lot of merchandise – resembling its Concord working system – that the corporate says are fully homegrown.
Over the previous 12 months, the telecoms big has proven indicators that it’s beating again in opposition to the U.S. curbs by unveiling an superior smartphone chip and making claims of breakthroughs in chip design instruments.
It has additionally set its sights on turning into a key supplier of computing energy for AI, with Chief Monetary Officer Meng Wanzhou saying final month that Huawei wished to construct a computing base for China and provides the world a “second choice”, in a veiled reference to dominant supplier the US.
Huawei’s companions in China thus far embrace iFlyTek, a number one Chinese language AI software program firm which is utilizing the Ascend 910 to coach its AI fashions. IFlyTek was additionally blacklisted by the US in 2019.
On Thursday, throughout iFlyTek’searnings name Senior Vice President Jiang Tao stated the Ascend 910B’s capabilities had been “corresponding to Nvidia’s A100” and introduced that it was creating a general-purpose AI infrastructure in China alongside Huawei.
“Our partnership now goals to allow domestically developed LLMs to be constructed with each homegrown {hardware} and software program expertise,” Jiang stated.
Different companions embrace state-owned software program corporations Tsinghua Tongfang and Digital China. At a convention in July, Huawei stated its AI chips now assist energy greater than 30 giant language fashions (LLM) in China, which goes via a generative AI craze and at present has greater than 130 LLMs.
Charlie Chai, an analyst with 86Research, stated Nvidia’s ecosystem dominance was not “an insurmountable impediment if home gamers are given ample time and an enormous buyer base”.
China’s self-sufficiency push, which has been championed by President Xi Jinping, is prone to help this. “Briefly, a small disruption to near-term provides, however an enormous enhance to the long-term self-sufficiency agenda,” Chai added.
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(Reporting by Josh Ye; Modifying by Brenda Goh and Miral Fahmy)
((Josh.Ye@thomsonreuters.com;))
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