Huawei Set to Mass Produce Advanced Ascend 910C AI Chip
Huawei is gearing up for the mass production of its Ascend 910C AI chip, a next-generation AI accelerator set to enter wide-scale shipment to Chinese clients as early as May 2025. According to Reuters, some initial deliveries have already begun, positioning Huawei as a key domestic alternative to Nvidia in China’s rapidly growing AI sector.
The move comes as US sanctions continue to block the export of high-performance AI chips—including Nvidia’s H100 and H20—to Chinese markets, prompting a pivot to local solutions such as Huawei’s Ascend line.
Huawei Ascend 910C AI Chip: A Domestic Rival to Nvidia
The Huawei Ascend 910C AI chip is an evolution of the 910B model, engineered by combining two 910B processors into one through advanced packaging technologies. This configuration provides double the computing power and memory, enabling it to approach the performance of Nvidia’s previously banned H100 chip.
Although Huawei has not officially commented on the chip’s release timeline, insiders say it is already being adopted by major Chinese internet and cloud service providers. Reports suggest the 910C delivers approximately 60% of the H100’s performance in inference tasks—crucial for AI applications like real-time translation, search engines, and generative models.
The Strategic Push Behind Ascend AI Chips
Huawei’s development of the Ascend 910C marks a broader strategy to strengthen China’s self-reliance in advanced semiconductor technology. The Ascend 920, its successor, is scheduled for late-2025 mass production and will reportedly feature over 900 teraflops of performance per card with HBM3 memory bandwidth of 4 TB/s.
The Ascend 920C variant will be optimized for cutting-edge Transformer models and Mixture of Experts architectures, promising 30%–40% efficiency improvements.
This pivot aligns with Huawei’s accelerated efforts to replace foreign tech dependencies—particularly amid increasing geopolitical pressure and escalating tech sanctions by the US.
AI Progress and Adoption in China
Evidence of Huawei’s AI chip adoption is already emerging. Last October, China Telecom announced it had trained large language models (LLMs) entirely using Huawei chips—an indicator of growing trust in the hardware’s capabilities. Industry reports also note that since September 2024, Huawei has offered Ascend 910C samples to top-tier server manufacturers for testing and integration.
The chips are reportedly being trialed by firms that previously depended on Nvidia hardware, underlining the Chinese tech ecosystem’s shift toward homegrown AI solutions.
Conclusion
The Huawei Ascend 910C AI chip is more than a technological product—it is a strategic milestone in China’s race to dominate AI hardware, especially as Western restrictions tighten. With performance nearing Nvidia’s premium AI accelerators and a robust roadmap ahead, Huawei is positioning itself as a critical force in the global AI arms race. Mass production of the 910C signals a new chapter in the battle for silicon supremacy.
