Huawei Unveils Ascend 910C: Poised to Challenge NVIDIA’s H100s in China’s AI Chip Market – Detailed Specs Inside

Huawei is on the brink of delivering a major player to the AI chip scene with the Ascend 910C, a product now rolling off the production lines. Here’s what to expect from this ambitious project.

The upcoming Ascend 910C will be built using the 7nm process technology from TSMC and SMIC. Huawei has high hopes, forecasting shipments of “millions” of these AI chips, potentially signaling a serious shift in the AI market.

Now, it’s safe to say that China’s tech industry is undergoing something of a renaissance right now. With cutting-edge models like DeepSeek’s R1 emerging, there’s been a sharp increase in demand for more robust computing capabilities. Among the crowd of Chinese AI chip developers, Huawei is pushing boundaries, and with the introduction of the Ascend 910C, the competition is set to intensify. When breaking down the details of the 910C chip, as unveiled by analyst @ohlennart, it’s clear that NVIDIA’s H100 may face a formidable challenge in China’s arena.

In essence, the new AI accelerator, the Ascend 910C, marks China’s highest achievement in the field so far. Thanks to some strategic maneuvers, such as backdoor sourcing, there could be as many as a million H100 equivalents hitting the market this year. As for its capabilities, the Ascend 910C makes use of dual silicon interposers connected with an organic substrate—a more traditional but tactically sound approach. This design amalgamates two Ascend 910B chips, thereby achieving a remarkable performance of 800 TFLOP/s at FP16 with memory bandwidth reaching up to 3.2 TB/s, closely rivaling the H100.

Huawei is leveraging 7nm process technology, drawing supplies from TSMC and SMIC. Before export restrictions kicked in, Huawei secured large orders from TSMC, underpinning a significant portion of the 910C production. Meanwhile, SMIC’s own advancements in 7nm technology are noteworthy, with expectations of monthly outputs around 50,000 wafers, providing ample supply to hit Huawei’s goal of mass production.

In the broader context of China’s AI advancements, the Ascend 910C is a pivotal development. Of course, compared to global heavyweights, particularly in terms of pure computing power, Huawei is trailing and faces a 10 to 20 times deficit. Nonetheless, companies like DeepSeek demonstrate that innovation can compensate for raw power shortages, leveraging China’s talent pool to enhance competitiveness in the AI sector significantly. This emerging AI race is set to be an exciting one to watch unfold.