Huawei’s New AI Chip Just Declared War on NVIDIA — And It’s Winning in China
Summary: Huawei has unveiled its Ascend 910C AI chip, powering the new CloudMatrix 384 — China’s most powerful AI cluster to date — and a direct competitor to NVIDIA’s GB2000 NVL72. This breakthrough not only signals China’s growing independence in AI compute, but also comes at a critical moment as U.S. tariffs and chip restrictions tighten.
Huawei just put the AI world on notice, with its new next-gen Ascend AI chip. This chip is said to disrupt competition from the West. The new Ascend 910C will power China’s most potent, CloudMatrix 384 AI cluster. This solution from Huawei successfully competes with NVIDIA’s most powerful AI server, that’s the GB2000 NVL72.
This essentially shows that China no longer needs to rely on the US or any other country, for computational needs. And it’s perfect timing, as Trump just raised the tariffs on China to 245%.
The CloudMatrix 384 apparently has 384 Ascend 910C chips, that are connected in an “all-to-all topology” configuration. Huawei has also managed to cover the architectural flaws by housing five times as many Ascend chips as NVIDIA’s GB2000. Showing that Huawei doesn’t care about the costs, performance efficiency, or stability ratios. Instead, it is looking to only beat out NVIDIA.
This launch comes as NVIDIA’s H20 has been “restricted” in China
The US is forcing NVIDIA to require an export license for sales of its H20 chip to China. Which is going to drastically reduce how many chips it can sell to China. And, obviously, that’s going to help a number of Chinese brands that are competing with NVIDIA, specifically Huawei.
This is the latest move by the US to limit China’s access to advanced semiconductors, as the US seeks to maintain its edge in AI technology. Apparently, some major Chinese cloud companies were still anticipating NVIDIA H20 deliveries before the end of 2025, unaware of these restrictions being on the horizon.
On the back of this news, NVIDIA’s stock dropped even more, currently down almost 8% for the day. It’s also down over 42% from its all-time high in November.
