[AAPL\-0.58%](https://qz.com/quote/AAPL)[TSM+1.44%](https://qz.com/quote/TSM)[NVDA+3.08%](https://qz.com/quote/NVDA)[ASML+1.28%](https://qz.com/quote/ASML) Despite its [comeback to compete with Apple](https://qz.com/apple-losing-huawei-china-smartphone-iphone-ai-market-1851672936) in the Chinese smartphone market, Huawei’s latest smartphone shows it is still years behind, researchers found. In November, the Chinese tech giant launched its Mate 70 smartphone series, including the Mate 70 Pro Plus, which is powered by a Kirin 9020 processor. The chip, however, uses 7-nanometer processing technology — the same process node [used in the Mate 60](https://qz.com/a-new-huawei-phone-has-defeated-us-chip-sanctions-again-1850803360?_gl=1*12635si*_ga*MjMyMTcyODYuMTcwNzE2NTQ5Mg..*_ga_V4QNJTT5L0*MTczMzkyNzAzNi40MDIuMS4xNzMzOTI4OTk2LjU5LjAuMA..) that it released last August, according to [a teardown](https://library.techinsights.com/public/hg-asset/e71466a2-64ef-410a-af5f-b3d001bd2318?utm_source=bloomberg&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Huawei%20Mate%2070%20Pro%20Series#moduleName=Search&reportCode=FCT-2412-801&subscriptionId=null&channelId=null&reportName=HiSilicon+Kirin+9020+from+Mate+70+Pro+Plus+-+Die+Analysis) by researchers at TechInsights. The 7-nanometer process node means Huawei is about 5 years behind Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company ([TSM+1.44%](https://qz.com/quote/TSM)), the manufacturing partner to Nvidia ([NVDA+3.08%](https://qz.com/quote/NVDA)) and Apple ([AAPL\-0.58%](https://qz.com/quote/AAPL)), which released its first 7-nanometer chip in 2018. In April, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said Huawei’s Mate 60 signaled that [U.S. export controls](https://qz.com/china-huawei-chip-us-sanctions-gina-raimondo-1851425501) on advanced technology “are working because that chip is not nearly as good” and “years behind what we have in the United States.” “We were expecting to find the Kirin 9100 chipset in the Mate 70 line-up,” TechInsights said, adding that China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, which manufactures chips for Huawei, was rumored to have used 5-nanometer processing technology for the chip. TSMC, which makes a majority of the world’s advanced chips, has said it [expects volume production of 2-nanometer chips](https://www.tsmc.com/english/dedicatedFoundry/technology/logic/l_2nm) in 2025 — three generations ahead of Huawei. Meanwhile, Huawei’s next two Ascend processors are being [designed with the 7-nanometer process](https://qz.com/huawei-advanced-chips-ai-smartphone-china-us-sanctions-1851702545), Bloomberg [reported](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-19/china-s-chip-advances-stall-as-us-curbs-hit-huawei-ai-product?srnd=homepage-americas&sref=P6Q0mxvj) in November. The stalled efforts are reportedly due U.S.-led export controls that don’t allow Huawei’s Chinese chipmaking partners to get extreme ultraviolet lithography machines from the Netherlands-based ASML ([ASML+1.28%](https://qz.com/quote/ASML)). In October, TechInsights took apart Huawei’s Ascend 910B chip and [found TSMC-made technology](https://qz.com/tsmc-told-us-government-huawei-export-controls-ai-chips-1851678301) — a possible violation of U.S. trade restrictions. At the same time, SMIC is reportedly having issues producing steady yields — or the amount of functional chips it can produce per manufacturing process — of 7-nanometer chips. One person told Bloomberg that Huawei may not have enough chips for AI and smartphones in the next few years.

The Trump administration is "taking measures to restrict the sale of AI chips by Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Intel," especially in China, [reports the New York Times](https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/markets/us-chipmakers-fear-they-are-ceding-chinas-ai-market-to-huawei/ar-AA1DcU6x). But that's triggered a series of dominoes. "In the two days after the limits became public, shares of Nvidia, the world's leading AI chipmaker, fell 8.4%. AMD's shares dropped 7.4%, and Intel's were down 6.8%." (AMD expects up to $800 million in charges after the move, [according to CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/16/amd-800-million-export-us-chip-restrictions-china.html), while NVIDIA said it would take a quarterly charge of about $5.5 billion.) The Times notes hopeful remarks Thursday from Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, during a meeting with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade. "We're going to continue to make significant effort to optimize our products that are compliant within the regulations and continue to serve China's market." But America's chipmakers also have a greater fear, according to the article: "that their retreat could turn the Chinese tech giant Huawei into a global chip-making powerhouse." _"For the U.S. semiconductor industry, China is gone," said Handel Jones, a semiconductor consultant at International Business Strategies, which advises electronics companies. He projects that Chinese companies will have a majority share of chips in every major category in China by 2030... Huang's message spoke to one of his biggest fears. For years, he has worried that Huawei, China's telecommunications giant, will become a major competitor in AI. He has warned U.S. officials that blocking U.S. companies from competing in China would accelerate Huawei's rise, said three people familiar with those meetings who spoke on the condition of anonymity. If Huawei gains ground, Huang and others at Nvidia have painted a dark picture of a future in which China will use the company's chips to build AI data centers across the world for the Belt and Road Initiative, a strategic effort to increase Beijing's influence by paying for infrastructure projects around the world, a person familiar with the company's thinking said..._ _Nvidia's previous generation of chips perform about 40% better than Huawei's best product, said Gregory C. Allen, who has written about Huawei in his role as director of the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But that gap could dwindle if Huawei scoops up the business of its American rivals, Allen said. Nvidia was expected to make more than $16 billion in sales this year from the H20 in China before the restriction. Huawei could use that money to hire more experienced engineers and make higher-quality chips. Allen said the U.S. government's restrictions also could help Huawei bring on customers like DeepSeek, a leading Chinese AI startup. Working with those companies could help Huawei improve the software it develops to control its chips. Those kinds of tools have been one of Nvidia's strengths over the years._ TechRepublic [identifies this key quote](https://www.techrepublic.com/article/news-us-block-nvidia-chip-sales-china/) from an earlier article: _"This kills NVIDIA's access to a key market, and they will lose traction in the country," Patrick Moorhead, a tech analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, [told The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/technology/nvidia-h20-chip-china-restrictions.html). He added that Chinese companies will buy from local rival Huawei instead._

Chinese tech giant Huawei is getting ready to test powerful, new AI chips that could rival those made by Nvidia ([NVDA+0.54%](https://qz.com/quote/NVDA)), according to a new report. Huawei Technologies will receive its first shipment of Ascend 910E chips from manufacturers as soon as the end of May, the [Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/tech/chinas-huawei-develops-new-ai-chip-seeking-to-match-nvidia-8166f606) reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. The processor is Huawei’s most powerful AI semiconductor to date. According to the report, Huawei is hopeful that the chips will be more powerful than Nvidia’s H100 AI training chip, which it released in 2022. The Shenzhen-based firm boosts the chip’s performance by packing in more silicon. Shares of Nvidia were down about 3.5% by late Monday morning. The chip is in the early stages of development and will need to undergo testing with an initial batch of customers to measure its performance, the sources said. Huawei, one of China’s biggest tech companies, has made persistent technological advances in recent years despite U.S. sanctions against it. The firm has been on a U.S.-trade blacklist for six years, and the U.S. restricts chipmakers from selling certain chip technologies to Chinese firms in an effort to curb the country’s advancements with AI chip technology. The tightening restrictions under both the Biden and Trump administrations have dealt blows to Nvidia by limiting its potential market. Nvidia designed its H20 chip, in particular, [to comply](https://qz.com/nvidia-nvda-stock-nasdaq-sp500-huawei-china-chips-1851777025?_gl=1*169ygsr*_ga*MzUxNzY2NjAwLjE3MjAwMTcyMjA.*_ga_V4QNJTT5L0*MTc0NTg0OTc1OS4zMDkuMS4xNzQ1ODU1MDI1LjYwLjAuMA..) with U.S. export rules — but those rules became even stricter and barred the Santa Clara, California-based company from selling them in China. Beijing has slammed the U.S.’ approach and President Donald Trump’s attempts to pressure other countries to cut their own trade with China. Earlier this month, China’s foreign ministry said it firmly opposes any trade agreements between the U.S. and third-party countries “at the expense of China,” framing the moves as aggressive rather than defensive. Nvidia is the world’s most valuable chipmaker with a market capitalization of about $2.6 trillion. But its shares are down 22.5% this year in the face of Trump’s escalating trade war with China. _—Catherine Baab contributed to this article._

**[Earn rates as high as 16% annually with Fixed-term Savings with Nexo.](https://nexo.com/fixed-term-savings?utm_source=sourceforge&utm_medium=fixed&utm_campaign=sourceforge_mb_sponsorship_earn_q225)** × 177195847 story [](//slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=china)[](//slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=ai) Posted by msmash on Monday April 28, 2025 @01:27PM from the shape-of-things-to-come dept. Huawei is gearing up to test its newest and most powerful AI processor, which the company hopes could [replace some higher-end products of U.S. chip giant Nvidia](https://www.wsj.com/tech/chinas-huawei-develops-new-ai-chip-seeking-to-match-nvidia-8166f606). From a WSJ report: _Huawei has approached some Chinese tech companies about testing the technical feasibility of the new chip, called the Ascend 910D, people familiar with the matter said. The company is slated to receive the first batch of samples of the processor as soon as late May, some of the people said. The development is still at an early stage, and a series of tests will be needed to assess the chip's performance and get it ready for customers, the people said. Huawei hopes that the latest iteration of its Ascend AI processors will be more powerful than Nvidia's H100, a popular chip used for AI training that was released in 2022, said one of the people. Previous versions are called 910B and 910C._

Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei and SMIC — two of China’s most important tech companies — in a move that will likely escalate the global chip war and signals that the island is tightening its alignment with U.S. trade policy. Taiwan’s International Trade Administration added the Chinese tech giants to its “Strategic High-Tech Commodities Entity List” over the weekend. Now, Taiwanese companies will need a government-issued license before sending any goods — from advanced chips to manufacturing materials — to Huawei, SMIC, or their global subsidiaries. It’s not the first time either company has landed on a blacklist — both have been barred from U.S. tech exports for years (they’re on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List). But the move is a significant one, perhaps designed to course correct after recent missteps. Last fall, U.S. regulators were surprised when teardown specialists found a Huawei AI chip that had silicon from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) — Taiwan’s crown jewel and the world’s top chipmaker (and a huge supplier to U.S. darling Nvidia). The revelation triggered a scramble: TSMC suspended shipments to certain Chinese clients, and the Commerce Department stepped in to block further exports. Now, TSMC could face a $1 billion fine tied to the incident. Still, some believe Huawei might have acquired several million of the important silicon pieces before its restriction-skirting was discovered. While TSMC’s direct business with Huawei and SMIC has already been mostly cut off under U.S. export rules since 2020, their additions to Taiwan’s government list will help formalize and enforce the policy more robustly. The blacklist also serves as a warning to Chinese companies accused of technology theft and talent poaching, which have long been sore spots for Taiwanese officials. And crucially, this embargo on critical plant technology, advanced packaging, and chip‑making supplies represents another major barrier to China’s AI and semiconductor dreams — to which Huawei and SMIC are key. Huawei has been racing to build viable alternatives to Nvidia’s powerful GPUs, while SMIC has poured billions into manufacturing capacity to support China’s domestic chip ecosystem. The two companies surprised U.S. politicians last year when Huawei released a 7-nanometer AI processor powered by SMIC technology, triggering fresh scrutiny in Washington. Still, progress for the two has been slow, and Huawei's chips still lag behind Nvidia’s — largely as a result of export controls on Chinese tech and a lack of scale and capability in China’s chip ecosystem. Nvidia, meanwhile, has become a central figure in the U.S.-China chip standoff, caught between [skyrocketing global demand](https://qz.com/nvidia-computex-2025-jensen-huang-ai-taiwan-dgx-spark-1851781267) for its AI processors and intensifying export controls aimed squarely at Beijing. In the past year, Washington has repeatedly [tightened restrictions](https://qz.com/nvidia-nvda-stock-nasdaq-sp500-huawei-china-chips-1851777025) on Nvidia’s China-bound chips — first banning sales of its top-tier GPUs, then pulling back even on watered-down versions. (CEO Jensen Huang said the chip ban [cost the company $15 billion](https://qz.com/nvidia-ceo-h20-ai-chip-ban-china-jensen-huang-1851781329).) While Nvidia has [tried to engineer](https://qz.com/nvidia-nvda-stock-nasdaq-sp500-huawei-china-chips-1851777025) around the rules with export-compliant alternatives, the U.S. keeps narrowing the loopholes, and now even those lighter chips are off the table. As a result, China’s tech giants are scrambling for substitutes, and Nvidia is losing access to one of the world’s largest AI markets — at least for now — although the company [keeps chugging along](https://qz.com/nvidia-q1-2025-earnings-china-ai-chips-1851782927). Huawei and SMIC’s addition to the entity list carries symbolic weight — a reminder that Taiwan’s position in the global semiconductor race isn’t just economic, it’s geopolitical. Taiwan’s move doesn’t come in a vacuum. It lands as the U.S. expands bans on Nvidia’s China-facing AI chips and just weeks after Beijing staged another round of military drills off Taiwan’s coast. China’s top political adviser recently reaffirmed calls for reunification. Taiwan’s president, meanwhile, labeled China a “foreign hostile force” for the first time. Against that backdrop, for Beijing, the export controls are yet another hurdle in a semiconductor arms race already littered with restrictions, tariffs, and blacklists. For Huawei and SMIC, they’re a sign that even the back doors are being locked. And for Taiwan, it’s a sign that the country is taking sides — and might be going all-in with its chips.

178936998 story [](//slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=ai)[ ](//slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=china)[](//slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=cloud) Posted by [BeauHD](https://www.linkedin.com/in/beauhd/) on Saturday August 30, 2025 @06:00AM from the locally-sourced dept. Alibaba, China's largest cloud-computing company, has [developed a domestically manufactured, versatile inference chip](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/alibaba-creates-ai-chip-to-help-china-fill-nvidia-void/ar-AA1LtpSZ) to fill the gap left by U.S. restrictions on Nvidia's sales in China. The Wall Street Journal reports: _Previous cloud-computing chips developed by Alibaba have mostly been designed for specific applications. The new chip, now in testing, is meant to serve a broader range of AI inference tasks, said people familiar with it. The chip is manufactured by a Chinese company, they said, in contrast to an earlier Alibaba AI processor that was fabricated by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. Washington has blocked TSMC from manufacturing AI chips for China that use leading-edge technology. \[...\] Private-sector cloud companies including Alibaba have refrained from bulk orders of Huawei's chips, resisting official suggestions that they should help the national champion, because they consider Huawei a direct rival in cloud services, people close to the firms said. China's biggest weakness is training AI models, for which U.S. companies rely on the most powerful Nvidia products. Alibaba's new chip is designed for inference, not training, people familiar with it said. Chinese engineers have complained that homegrown chips including Huawei's run into problems when training AI, such as overheating and breaking down in the middle of training runs. Huawei declined to comment. _