• Reports suggest Huawei is nearing the testing phase of its new AI chip.
• The Chinese company is said to want to rival the dominance of NVIDIA in the market.
• Huawei is reaching out to test partners for its latest AI GPU – the Ascend 910D.

When it comes to AI chips, one company dominates the space – NVIDIA. Huawei is aiming to rival said dominance with a new AI chip, according to reports, with the company ready to begin testing.

Citing sources familiar with the project, the Wall Street Journal (paywall), noted that Huawei is making significant progress in the development of its latest AI chip as part of its Ascend AI GPU lineup.

Here, Huawei has begun to send our feelers for potential partners to test the capabilities of the Ascend 910D, as it has been christened.

Unsurprisingly, this news comes on the back of recent intensified restrictions by the United States targeting China, with exports of AI chips in particular now requiring an exhaustive license in order to ship the silicon to the Asian powerhouse nation.

In particular, NVIDIA noted that its H20 AI chips were restricted from being shipped to China. Here, the US offered up the threat posed by an H20 chip being used by a “supercomputer in China”, but did not mention why it was safe for the US to have access to such technologies.

Either way, should testing of the Huawei AI chip prove successful, it would be a major step in helping the region become less reliant on technology from outside its borders.

The self-sufficiency seems like something that the US would try to avoid, so blocking any shipments of AI chips from the likes of NVIDIA may end up having the opposite effect that the Trump administration is hoping.

With Huawei is planning to begin shipments of its Ascend 910C AI chip next month in China, it appears as if the sanctions are not having the desired effect.

The only silicon-related hurdle for Huawei right now, remains 5G chipsets, which it is banned from featuring in its smartphones, but if greater restrictions materialise, it seems like the company is prepared to take whatever measures it deems fit, as was the case with the recent Mate 60 series.