Huawei Reportedly Ventures Into The Server GPU Market

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Huawei Atlas 300

Huawei Atlas 300 (Image credit: Huawei)

Korean news outlet The Elec has received word from its industry sources that Huawei will be taking a crack at the server graphics card market this year. If true, Huawei will have its work cut out for the tech giant since the company will have to compete against veterans, such as Nvidia and AMD, and eventually, newcomer Intel.

According to the report, Huawei will setup up shop at Korea under the newly created Cloud and AI Business Group. Huawei Korea is presently comprised of the Carrier, Enterprise and Consumer divisions. The Cloud and AI Business Group will report directly to the Enterprise division.

Huawei has reportedly already begun building up its roster. The Elec believes that the corporation is trying to attract current and former talent from Nvidia to help pursue its goals. Huawei obviously has no lack of resources or infrastructure. With the right amount of talent around the company, Huawei could turn out to be a worthy rival.

Last year, Huawei launched the Ascend 910 AI chip that it claims is capable of delivering up to 256 TFLOPS of half-precision (FP16) performance, which would be twice as fast as Nvidia's Tesla V100, and to 512 TOPS of INT8 compute performance at 310W. Huawei's silicon is even one step ahead of Nvidia in terms of manufacturing process: The Ascend 910 is based on TSMC's N7+ process node, while the Tesla V100's GV100 die uses the 12nm process. Huawei's Ascend 910 would eventually make its way into the brand's own Atlas 300 PCIe 4.0 accelerator card.

Huawei's desire of stepping into the server graphics card market isn't a coincidence either. We suspect China's ambitious "3-5-2" initiative to replace all foreign hardware and software in public and government institutions by 2022 probably played a big role in Huawei's strategic move. China already has its domestic companies and other joint ventures producing homemade operating systems, motherboards, and processors, such as Zhaoxin's latest KaiXian KX-U6780A. 

Sourcing chips might prove to be a problem for Huawei as a recent report reveals that the U.S. is in preparation to prevent TSMC from doing business with the Chinese tech giant. If that happens, Huawei will probably have to find comfort in other arms, such as Samsung or China's own SMIC.

Graphics cards might be the last piece to China's self-sufficiency, and ultimately that's where Huawei comes in. If the company successfully produces a competitive server-class graphics card, Huawei might expand its offerings to the consumer market, too.

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Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • tiggers97
    So after their communications network fiasco; who's going to install these on their servers and risk further security leaks from pre-installed "back doors"?
    Reply
  • Makaveli
    Friends don't let friends buy Huawei.
    Reply
  • ShattaAD
    tiggers97 said:
    So after their communications network fiasco; who's going to install these on their servers and risk further security leaks from pre-installed "back doors"?
    Remember this whole 'fiasco' is orchestrated by the US because they see Huawei as a competitive threat and the trade war didn't help make things rosier. The US has yet to conjure up an atom of evidence to implicate Huawei. Heck even reputable 3rd party security vetting companies in the US said they found no evidence of Huawei implemented any form of 'backdoor' in their 4G/5G equipment. The US government is just doing what they does best when they're red with envy by dragging oppositions through the mud to destroy their reputation in the hope of stigmatizing them.
    Reply
  • derekullo
    ShattaAD said:
    The US has yet to conjure up an atom of evidence to implicate Huawei
    The use of the word conjure has Admiral Motti vibes.

    Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Trump. Your sad devotion to that ancient trolling religion has not helped you conjure up incriminating evidence, or given you clairvoyance enough to find Huawei's hidden factory.
    Reply
  • tiggers97
    For those wondering what I am speaking of:
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/germany-has-evidence-huawei-worked-with-chinese-intelligence

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/17/18264283/huawei-security-threat-experts-china-spying-5g
    https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/13/the-u-s-is-charging-huawei-with-racketeering/
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2019/02/26/huawei-security-scandal-everything-you-need-to-know/#2a563cd373a5
    If you really want to put their gear in your network, behind firewalls, made by a company with heavy Chinese government investment and influence, a government that makes monitoring of its citizens a routine practice, be my guest. Just be informed about it upfront.
    Reply
  • ShattaAD
    tiggers97 said:
    For those wondering what I am speaking of:
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/germany-has-evidence-huawei-worked-with-chinese-intelligence
    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/17/18264283/huawei-security-threat-experts-china-spying-5g
    https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/13/the-u-s-is-charging-huawei-with-racketeering/
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2019/02/26/huawei-security-scandal-everything-you-need-to-know/#2a563cd373a5
    If you really want to put their gear in your network, behind firewalls, made by a company with heavy Chinese government investment and influence, a government that makes monitoring of its citizens a routine practice, be my guest. Just be informed about it upfront.
    Oh right, how enlightening that you should cite articles from US publishers quoting 'US officials/intelligence' sources. They must be unquestionably correct then given how much we could trust our government and the NSA.
    Funny you mentioned, given how our government makes monitoring its citizens a routine practice in the US(shhh~! You're not supposed to know this...), should the world be worried about buying phones with a Qualcomm chip or Apple chip in it??
    Reply
  • Deicidium369
    ShattaAD said:
    Remember this whole 'fiasco' is orchestrated by the US because they see Huawei as a competitive threat and the trade war didn't help make things rosier. The US has yet to conjure up an atom of evidence to implicate Huawei. Heck even reputable 3rd party security vetting companies in the US said they found no evidence of Huawei implemented any form of 'backdoor' in their 4G/5G equipment. The US government is just doing what they does best when they're red with envy by dragging oppositions through the mud to destroy their reputation in the hope of stigmatizing them.
    They see them as a security threat, not a competitive threat.

    Go collect your check from Chinese Gov't and Huawei - you tried.
    Reply
  • Deicidium369
    Makaveli said:
    Friends don't let friends buy Huawei.
    I don't know you, but I would prefer you not buy Huawei, I would hope you would do the same for me.
    Reply
  • Deicidium369
    tiggers97 said:
    So after their communications network fiasco; who's going to install these on their servers and risk further security leaks from pre-installed "back doors"?
    These are 90% for the Chinese domestic market.
    Reply
  • nervousstate
    tiggers97 said:
    So after their communications network fiasco; who's going to install these on their servers and risk further security leaks from pre-installed "back doors"?
    Do you still believe that US created nonsense conspiracy which has been proven to be utter lies by every nation in the world?

    The better question is - Why do you trust US-based companies that have been openly proven to provide the NSA with backdoors into systems containing Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and Cisco hardware? There have even been NSA documents released stating that they have used this to access foreign governments' infrastructure, like Germany, the UK, China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia... Why do you think China and Russia have put much effort into removing US chips from its network?
    Reply