Huawei is working up its way in China’s AI market share against Nvidia

Huawei is working on gaining a large part of the AI market in China, which is currently led by Nvidia. It offers local companies the ability to use their AI chips for “inference” tasks. 

To “train” LLMs, major AI companies in China depend on GPUs developed by Nvidia. The company stands at 3.4 trillion and is seen as an essential part of improving AI technology.

According to a Financial Times report, Huawei is promoting its new Ascend AI processors for Chinese groups that are considering “inference” as an option. Inference is the function that LLMs use to create prompt responses.

The senior AI researcher of inference acceleration for Huawei’s Zurich lab, Georgios Zacharopoulos, says, “Training is important, but it only occurs a few times.” He said the company will serve more customers by focusing on inference.

Huawei is seen as a strong competitor for Nvidia in China

Nvidia’s prominent rival in the local market is using AI models trained on Nvidia’s products on the Ascend chips. According to employees and customers, Huawei’s direction has fewer technical challenges and can generate high profits.

The company has also provided a tool to fill the gap between the different software used by Nvidia GPUs and Ascend.

The Chinese government is also fully supporting Huawei’s promotions. Officials are asking local tech companies to use Huawei AI chips instead of Nvidia.

One source associated with Nvidia’s operations in China said that the company is also seen internally as the country’s most serious rival since its chip design is more “advanced.”

Unlike US tech giants OpenAI and Google, Chinese companies face the challenge of accessing the best-quality GPUs. Due to US limitations on exports, Nvidia only provides China with lower-quality H20 chips. Nonetheless, these chips remain in high demand in China, and they are still better than the ones manufactured locally.