Huawei’s Ascend 910C Aims to Challenge NVIDIA’s H100s in China’s AI Chip Market: Alleged Specifications Unveiled

Huawei’s much-anticipated AI accelerator, the Ascend 910C, is on the verge of making its debut as production ramps up, and we’re starting to get a clearer picture of what this chip will bring to the table.

In the midst of a technological upheaval in China’s AI industry, driven by models like DeepSeek’s R1, there’s a skyrocketing demand for enhanced computing capabilities. Among Chinese AI chip producers, Huawei is emerging as a front-runner. The forthcoming Ascend 910C is poised to intensify competition, especially as new insights from analyst Lennart Heim reveal that this chip could be a considerable rival to NVIDIA’s H100 in the Chinese market.

Lennart Heim shared on Twitter that Huawei’s newest AI accelerator, the Ascend 910C, is nearing production. It’s being hailed as China’s leading AI chip, with Heim suggesting that thanks to strategic sourcing, we might see a significant volume of this high-performance chip—up to a million units—by year-end. This development marks a selective yet formidable competition in the AI hardware space.

Digging into the details, the Ascend 910C takes a simpler route than NVIDIA’s offerings by employing two separate silicon interposers linked via an organic substrate, rather than a single, more complex unit. Essentially, it’s doubling up on Ascend 910B chips to boost performance. The result? The 910C reportedly achieves 800 TFLOP/s in FP16 performance with a memory bandwidth of up to 3.2 TB/s, levels that closely rival NVIDIA’s H100.

Huawei is reportedly leveraging 7nm process technology for this chip, sourcing from both TSMC and SMIC. Anticipating export restrictions, Huawei secured substantial 7nm orders from TSMC. Meanwhile, SMIC, having made strides in the 7nm space, is set to contribute to production with an expected monthly wafer output of around 50,000—adequate for Huawei’s ambition of shipping millions of Ascend AI chips.

The Ascend 910C represents a significant milestone for China’s AI computing landscape, showcasing potential despite Huawei trailing behind globally by a notable margin in computing prowess. Nonetheless, companies like DeepSeek have demonstrated that innovative solutions can effectively bridge computational gaps. As China harnesses its reservoir of talent, the global AI competition is set to become even fiercer.