Huawei says China's AI progress will not be stopped by US sanctions on GPUs and chipmaking tech

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Huawei exec says Chinese innovation cannot be stopped.

Nvidia Hopper H100 GPU and DGX systems
(Image credit: Nvidia)

Zhang Ping'an, chief executive of Huawei Cloud, dismissed fears that China's limited access to the most advanced AI processors, such as Nvidia's H100/H200 and B100/B200, would hinder its progress in AI. Speaking at the World AI Conference in Shanghai, he emphasized that China should not solely depend on these high-end chips to achieve leadership in AI.

"Nobody will deny that we are facing limited computing power in China," said Zhang Ping'an at the World AI Conference in Shanghai, reports Reuters. "But we cannot rely solely on having the AI chips with the advanced manufacturing process nodes as the ultimate foundation for AI infrastructure."

Huawei develops its own Ascend 910-series processors for AI applications, which it claims are competitive against Nvidia's A100. Analysts from Europe and the U.S. have never proven that claim, but since Chinese entities like Baidu, Huawei, or Tencent cannot procure Nvidia's A100, H100/H200, or upcoming Blackwell-based processors without the approval of the U.S. government, they really do not have much choice but to rely on domestic technology, such as processors from Huawei or Biren Technology.

But there is a problem with those processors: they are made on lagging nodes and cannot offer performance on part with modern AI and HPC GPUs, such as AMD's Instinct MI300X or Nvidia's Hopper or Blackwell-powered H100/H200 and B100/B200 offerings. SMIC, which makes chips for Huawei and Biren, does not have access to leading-edge equipment, so China will lag behind other players when it comes to per-processor compute performance for at least a while.

To address the lack of access to the best processors for AI on-premise, Zhang suggested a holistic approach that combines cloud, edge, and network technologies to boost efficiency and reduce power consumption for AI workloads and said that Huawei Cloud is one of the leading providers of AI services.

He also advocated using cloud technology to compensate for the lack of cutting-edge AI processors, though it is unclear whether he advised using Huawei's processors in the Huawei Cloud to train large language models or just training them on someone else's machines in someone else's cloud and then running them in Huawei's Cloud. At the end of the day, without powerful processors with a lot of memory, there is only so much one can do with hardware designed and made in China.

"If we believe that not having the most advanced AI chips means we will be unable to lead in AI, then we need to abandon this viewpoint," Zhang said.

Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

4 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mac_angel
    Not surprised. China has the manpower and the money to keep pressing forward, even with the sanctions. Tom's Hardware has been reporting as far back as 15 years ago that China had been snatching really great computer engineers from all over the world (some were hinted at being not completely "honest", which doesn't surprise me). They've been playing the long game for a long time.
    I also think it's going to be problematic in the sense of money. Many countries are going further and further in debt, but not China. I think it's going to be the same as the Cold War where Russia just went broke at the end. Western politicians are going to do the same to us now and I think China will end up on top, which is a scary thing.
    Reply
  • Silas Sanchez
    The world needs a power like china to oppose the US who is greedy and selfish and really only cares about them selves and ultimately wants the rest of the world to remain little and much less rich. That is not how man is suppose to live, in inequality, people with nothing on one side of the world while US corporations are worth trillions, its absolutely shameful. Bertrand Russel in the 1950s said the world is hideous, its truly hideous, well it just goes to show you that all things are relative.
    We need a balance of power in the world or else there literally isn't anything to keep the US inline, they are becoming too powerful, too corrupt, and influential and that is dangerous, which will become more apparent later in the century to western allies once environmental stressors are enormous. When the world is in a crisis, its the US who overall benefits and they love that, they love being able to spend a trillion each year on military when each passing year other countries economies just fold and deteriorate. Their tools are not rationalism, instead they are just bias, antagonistic, and hypocrites, just behaving childish accusing other countries of wrong doing based on what they think is right rather than what actually is.
    The sanctions are just going to make China more determined to become powerful and fully self sufficient. Everything the US is doing is fundamentally broken, they have the biggest military budget, but isn't it funny they also have the biggest threats? 20yrs in Afgan to replace the taliban with the taliban, yep they cant fix the worlds problems and deep down they know it. That is whats scary! The attempt to fix things and just make them worse.

    We haven't seen the big picture yet as its distorted by bias media, wait until 2030+ at least, then you will see Chinas potential.
    Reply
  • The Historical Fidelity
    mac_angel said:
    Not surprised. China has the manpower and the money to keep pressing forward, even with the sanctions. Tom's Hardware has been reporting as far back as 15 years ago that China had been snatching really great computer engineers from all over the world (some were hinted at being not completely "honest", which doesn't surprise me). They've been playing the long game for a long time.
    I also think it's going to be problematic in the sense of money. Many countries are going further and further in debt, but not China. I think it's going to be the same as the Cold War where Russia just went broke at the end. Western politicians are going to do the same to us now and I think China will end up on top, which is a scary thing.
    I don’t know where you are getting your financial information from, but the facts are that China’s federal debt is 290% of GDP and skyrocketing. Also, the number of provincial governments in severe debt and bankruptcy is alarming.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/29/china-economy-charts-show-how-much-debt-has-grown.html#:~:text=China%E2%80%99s%2520debt%2520has%2520grown%2520dramatically%2520over%2520the%2520past,reduce%2520the%2520country%E2%80%99s%2520reliance%2520on%2520debt%2520for%2520growth.
    https://www.ft.com/content/e8cb37b6-df30-4729-8509-8fc4d482d287
    Reply
  • The Historical Fidelity
    Silas Sanchez said:
    The world needs a power like china to oppose the US who is greedy and selfish and really only cares about them selves and ultimately wants the rest of the world to remain little and much less rich. That is not how man is suppose to live, in inequality, people with nothing on one side of the world while US corporations are worth trillions, its absolutely shameful. Bertrand Russel in the 1950s said the world is hideous, its truly hideous, well it just goes to show you that all things are relative.
    We need a balance of power in the world or else there literally isn't anything to keep the US inline, they are becoming too powerful, too corrupt, and influential and that is dangerous, which will become more apparent later in the century to western allies once environmental stressors are enormous. When the world is in a crisis, its the US who overall benefits and they love that, they love being able to spend a trillion each year on military when each passing year other countries economies just fold and deteriorate. Their tools are not rationalism, instead they are just bias, antagonistic, and hypocrites, just behaving childish accusing other countries of wrong doing based on what they think is right rather than what actually is.
    The sanctions are just going to make China more determined to become powerful and fully self sufficient. Everything the US is doing is fundamentally broken, they have the biggest military budget, but isn't it funny they also have the biggest threats? 20yrs in Afgan to replace the taliban with the taliban, yep they cant fix the worlds problems and deep down they know it. That is whats scary! The attempt to fix things and just make them worse.

    We haven't seen the big picture yet as it’s distorted by bias media, wait until 2030+ at least, then you will see Chinas potential.
    Well written… riddled with disinformation and errors…but well written.
    Reply