Huawei Unveils Ascend 920 AI Chip to Replace Banned Nvidia H20

On April 9, former President Donald Trump extended the ban on AI chip exports to China, specifically targeting Nvidia's H20. Just one day later, Huawei announced the Ascend 920 at a partner conference, a move that caught many industry insiders by surprise. According to DigiTimes Asia, the Ascend 920 is expected to enter mass production by the latter half of 2025 and is anticipated to effectively replace the H20 chips that Chinese companies can no longer access. The Nvidia H20 has been a popular choice among Chinese companies, even though it is less powerful than the company's latest AI offerings. Sales of the H20 in China have been robust, growing 50% quarter over quarter. Despite this, the new export restrictions will likely cost Nvidia a significant $5.5 billion write-off. This represents a substantial opportunity for Huawei, which has long sought to compete with Nvidia's robust capabilities. Huawei's current AI chip, the Ascend 910C, already delivers around 60% of the inference performance of Nvidia's H100. However, the next-generation Ascend 920, which will use a 6 nm process node, is expected to surpass 900 TFLOPs per card and feature a 4 TB/s memory bandwidth with HBM3 modules. Additionally, the 920C variant, designed for Transformer and Mixture of Experts models, is projected to improve efficiency by 30% to 40% over its predecessor. The timing of Huawei's announcement, shortly after the White House extended the export ban on Nvidia's H20 and AMD's MI308, suggests that the company was well-prepared for the restrictions. While the planned expansion of export controls has been in the works for months, Huawei's rapid response indicates that it has been diligently developing the Ascend 920 in the background. Adding to its arsenal, Huawei also unveiled the AI CloudMatrix 384 solution at the same conference. This rack-scale offering is designed to deliver performance superior to the Nvidia GB200, albeit with higher power consumption. Nonetheless, it is likely to attract interest from Chinese companies, particularly as other nations, including Singapore and Malaysia, are stepping up efforts to combat the smuggling of sanctioned chips into China. This strategic move by Huawei underscores its commitment to advancements in AI technology and its ability to respond swiftly to geopolitical challenges. As the export restrictions tighten, Huawei's new offerings could play a crucial role in the ongoing tech race, providing viable alternatives for Chinese firms and potentially reshaping the global AI chip market.