technology/ai-chip-demand-forces-huawei-slow-smartphone-production-sources-2024-02-05/”>Reuters reports that Huawei will focus on ramping up manufacturing of its ai chip, the Ascend 910B, at the expense of production of its Mate 60 phones in at least one facility.
Huawei manufactures both its Ascend ai chip and the Kirin chip, which powers the Mate 60, in a single facility. However, production at the plant has been low, people familiar with the matter said. Reuters, so the company now plans to prioritize the ai chip. Demand for Ascend chips, which help train ai models, has been growing nationwide. By delaying chip production for the Mate 60, Huawei can focus on improving the facility's number of usable and salable chips. The Mate 60 helped Huawei surpass Apple's phone sales in the country in 2023. tech/tech-war/article/3251007/huawei-reclaims-top-spot-chinas-smartphone-sales-ranking-its-first-time-back-company-was-added-us”>write the South China Morning Postwhich makes slowing down its production an interesting bet on the importance of ai for the company.
Chinese ai companies are struggling to get their hands on highly sought-after ai chips like Nvidia's H100 after the United States imposed restrictions on chip exports. This has pushed Chinese ai developers to use domestic alternatives such as Huawei's Ascend 910B chip.
Chinese companies have been trying to plant their flag in the ai generative cycle, but are at a slight development disadvantage relative to the United States. Companies like Baidu have released large language models and chatbots to the public, but they have yet to find the scale of OpenAI's ChatGPT or Google's Bard. China was the first country to introduce ai policies and requires companies working on ai products to go through an approval process before releasing them to the public.
