Huawei sheds secrecy to outline chip and computing plans
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The news: Chinese chip maker Huawei broke years of silence on its manufacturing strategy to outline its long-term plans for the first time on Thursday, revealing plans to launch powerful computing clusters and help China become less reliant on foreign semiconductor suppliers, namely Nvidia.
The context: In an announcement shared on Thursday, Huawei provided clarity around its timeline for its Ascend artificial intelligence chips and Kunpeng server chips, which could intensify already heightened US-Chinese competition in the space.
Eric Xu, Huawei’s current rotating chairman revealed at the Huawei Connect 2025 event in Shanghai that the company has achieved high-bandwidth memory which had to date been dominated by SK Hynix (South Korea) and Samsung Electronics. "We will follow a 1-year release cycle and double compute with each release,” Xu said.
Huawei’s presentation at the event on Thursday highlighted new SuperPod cluster designs that would allow the company to link as many as 15,488 of its Ascend neural processing units for AI to operate them as a coherent system. The SuperPods are set to be built with new generation Ascend chips from 2026.
The new generation Ascend chips will feature high-bandwidth memory designed in-house by Huawei. It plans to roll out a new Ascend generation in late 2027, followed by another in late 2028. Huawei did not specify who will fabricate the semiconductors required.
China has been ramping up efforts to target Nvidia’s presence in China, this week ordering local firms to halt and cancel existing orders from the world-leading chipmaker.
Huawei's announcement was likely carefully timed ahead of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday.
The sources: Huawei press release, Bloomberg, Reuters, Eric Xu speech transcript
