Zhao Ming talked about Honor and Huawei in a livestream interview. The official said that Honor has cut off its relationship with Huawei in a far better way than any other company. But this separation initially brought many challenges.

The CEO mentioned that his original family (Huawei + Honor) has been successful. Although after being separated from the parent firm, Honor felt immense pressure.

It had to begin everything from scratch. The biggest challenge for Honor executives was to manage those operations that they were completely unaware of.

Why separated?

After the U.S. banned Huawei in 2019, the company sold its subsidiary firm Honor to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology in November 2020. The aim was to prevent Honor from the drawbacks of the ban and enable it to operate freely.

The beginning was quite tough for Honor. The company was under pressure to meet consumers’ expectations with better products. Yet it managed the difficult times and came out with flying colors.

Honor faced pressure and challenges after leaving Huawei: CEO (Image Credits: MyDrivers)

Zhao Ming further spoke on comparisons of Honor with Huawei and Apple. According to him, Honor feels pressure while competing with tech giants. Yet, the company remains calm and continues to explore new ways that can benefit its consumers.

“When communicating with backbones and supervisors, everyone said that we are leading, but we always feel a lot of pressure. We have three big mountains. The objects we compare with are not Apple today, but Huawei tomorrow.” 

Zhao Ming states that he tries to see positivity in every aspect. The official once said that despite pressure and challenges, Honor made a separate identity from Huawei. The company is constantly achieving success and aims to offer more improved and innovative products in the future.

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Ming-Chi Kuo noted that ASML is in rumors to increase the price of its chip-making tools for TSMC. But that won’t be the exact case. Perhaps, the Taiwanese semiconductor firm will likely bargain with ASML and suppress it for price reductions.

TSMC is one of the biggest customers of ASML. The latter used to sell large lithography machines to the former to print circuit patterns onto silicon wafers.

Wall Street stated a few points that hint at why ASML could raise the price of its chip equipment for TSMC. Firstly, ASML has planned to achieve €30 to €40 billion in revenue range by 2025. The firm is taking new steps to enhance its sales by next year.

Secondly, TSMC and other customers of the Dutch chip equipment supplier are looking forward to more advanced chipmaking processes by next year. This may ultimately increase the demand for ASML’s highest-end EUV tools pricing €350 million.

Lastly, ASML is seeing a major decline in semiconductor stocks for the time being. Customers like Intel and Samsung didn’t make much progress. But TSMC has recently reported blockbuster earnings with 54% profit. This could be a reason to hike chip equipment prices for the Taiwanese semiconductor firm.

TSMC is highly dependent on ASML for chipmaking tools. Thus, the Dutch firm could take advantage of this point to some extent by raising its price. However, the U.S. government may subsidize this dealing with better profits on both sides.

Note that neither ASML nor TSMC has confirmed this news so far. Hence, it is better to take this rumor with a grain of salt at present.

ASML rumored to increase chip-making tool price for TSMC (Image Credits: ASML)

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The U.S. is looking for every loophole that can help Huawei in the advanced chipmaking process. A recent report said that the Biden administration may soon add more Chinese firms to the Entity list, blocking the growth of the chip network in China.

Apart from keeping an eye on China, the U.S. is now investigating other foreign suppliers who can lend a hand to Huawei in semiconductor manufacturing.

Inputs reveal that the U.S. Commerce Department started probing TSMC for chip dealings with Huawei. The investigation is in the early stages and aims to check if the chipmaker has been making any AI or phone chips for Huawei for the time being.

If TSMC is found breaching the U.S. export regulations, it might face huge penalties or even a prohibition on using advanced chipmaking tools or techs temporarily.

Under this investigation, the U.S. authorities have targeted the Mate 60 series’ Kirin 5G 9000s chip and recently developed AI Ascend processor. Both these chipsets significantly contribute to China’s progress in the semiconductor industry.

The Commerce Department inquired TSMC about having any direct or indirect (via different names) chip shipments to Huawei in the past or at present. Investigators are also looking into other related aspects like “know-your-customer checks”.

Issues for TSMC

Further details note that the investigation could trouble TSMC to some extent. The Taiwanese chipmaker is one of the key chipset suppliers for U.S. firms.

Huawei AI chipsets (Image Credits: Huawei)

For instance, Apple and Nvidia mainly rely on TSMC for their processors. Also, the Biden administration was planning a $6.6 billion subsidy for the chipmaker to develop its third fabrication unit in Arizona. However, an investigation could halt benefits for some time.

TSMC responded to this investigation and said that it follows all the U.S. export regulations without fail. Although if there is a problem, then it will take action to guarantee compliance in all possible aspects.

“TSMC is a law-abiding company and we are committed to complying with all applicable regulations. If we have any reason to believe there are issues, we will take prompt action to ensure compliance.”

HuaweiCentral’s Take

The U.S. will try every effort to push back Huawei as done in 2019. But this time, the Chinese OEM is focusing on being self-reliant. A recent report claimed that Huawei Kirin 7nm chip performance can match the level of the 5nm processor of TSMC.

How far the U.S. will stretch this investigation on TSMC chip dealings with Huawei would be worth looking forward to.

U.S. investigates TSMC on chip dealings with Huawei (Image Credits: Huawei/TSMC)

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Huawei is unable to access high-end chipmaking tools due to U.S. sanctions. Now the foreign authorities are planning more challenges for the company in semiconductor manufacturing. They are pressing Biden to impose more restrictions.

Chairman John Moolenaar and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi – the members of the House Select Committee on strategic conflicts between the U.S. and China, recently wrote a letter to Gina Raimondo (Commerce Secretary) on Chinese tech progress concerns.

The letter highlights that the Biden administration should increase export controls to block Huawei’s secretive chip network growth. The “clandestine semiconductor facilities” of Huawei will ultimately harm U.S. security on a large scale.

“…Just as you have taken steps to prohibit Huawei from purchasing U.S. chips, it is similarly important and logical to restrict the flow of SME to prevent Huawei from fabricating its chips. Restricting the flow… will send an important signal to… Huawei that the United States will take action to prevent U.S. technology from enabling its problematic technology ambitions.” (via)

According to Bloomberg, Huawei is currently teaming up with Pengxinxu, SwaySure Technology, and Qingdao SiEn to expand its chip network. These firms are free from U.S. restrictions and do not count in the Entity list.

US lawmakers urge tougher restrictions on Huawei chip tech: Report (Image Credits: Huawei)

Huawei also collaborated with the PXW Semiconductor to accelerate its chipmaking process. But later, the U.S. added the respective firm to the entity list, prohibiting it from accessing advanced technologies. Now they are planning the same treatment for the above-mentioned firms to block ways for Huawei.

The Commerce Department has said to respond on this matter soon with their appropriate mediums.

Huawei launched a 7nm chip last year which belongs to the SMIC foundry. Since then, the U.S. started eyeing the OEM for every step it takes in chipmaking.

The U.S. authorities canceled the licenses of many foreign semiconductor firms from selling chipsets or chipmaking equipment to Huawei. ASML is one of the major examples of this aspect. Now lawmakers are urging to ban 120+ Chinese companies and impose fresh restrictions on chip tool sales in China.

Apart from its own efforts, the U.S. is pressuring its neighboring countries to impose the same restrictions on China. Although they didn’t show much interest.

How Huawei will make its steps more firm in the chip tech field amid these US restrictions and export problems would be worth looking forward to.

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A few early teardowns have shown that Pura 70 series uses more Chinese parts than previous Huawei phones. The standard variant possesses nearly 33 China-made components, which is the highest number to date. Read the full details HERE.

Now TechInsights revealed that the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra has advanced 5G radio architecture. It says that the OEM imposed improved RF parts on the device.

RF Components:

RF (radio-frequency) components are the basic parts that operate a device. These elements manage filtering, amplifying, mixing, and modulating signals. Simply put these help in transmitting/receiving radio signals between two devices.

TechInsights states that the Pura 70 Ultra shows the company’s progress in cutting-edge technologies for its devices. And the 5G radio design is no exception to this theory. The report also mentions that the Pura model has a few similar RF parts to the Mate 60 series handsets. Some of these are given in the image below.

Huawei Pura 70 Ultra has cutting-edge 5G radio architecture: TechInsights (Image Credits: MyDrivers)

Notably, all components mentioned in the list are made in China. The main manufacturers of these parts are HiSilicon, China Electronics Group, and Onmicro.

Apart from components, certain features of the Pura 70 Ultra are also running on Chinese components. For instance, the satellite features by Beidou and Tiantong are possible due to the MSC06A MSS chip and a HiSilicon processor.

These enhancements reflect Huawei’s progress towards self-reliance. The company is ditching foreign components for its devices. It aims to support native suppliers and enrich its creations with self-developed elements over the U.S.-based parts.

A recent input said that the Huawei Mate 70 series will have more Chinese components than the Pura 70 models. Things will get clear after the official unveiling of the upcoming flagship.

(source)

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China Telecom is one of the world’s largest mobile network service providers and the second-largest wireless carrier in China. Besides providing useful services and seamless experiences, it also develops large AI models with advanced capabilities.

The telecom recently developed two large language models that were trained using Chinese AI chips. One of these is TeleChat2-115B while the other one is unnamed.

In a statement, the telecom operator said that its open-source large AI models rely on tens of thousands of domestically produced chips. One of these models has 1 trillion parameters. The effectiveness of AI models mostly depends on the parameter scales.

The AI Institute at China Telecom shared the news via WeChat and further stated: “… the achievement indicates that China has truly realized total self-sufficiency in domestic LLM training.”

China Telecom reportedly chose Huawei AI chips over Nvidia (Image Credits: Huawei)

Huawei AI Chips

China Telecom didn’t reveal the chip supplier’s name. But it has a cooperation with Huawei. Both firms have developed several network solutions that can benefit both operators and consumers, providing a rich and efficient network experience.

Earlier, the telecom operator mentioned that it is making new AI models with Huawei Ascend chips. China has already started sidelining Nvidia and other foreign chipmakers to a greater extent, promoting native suppliers and self-reliance.

This will also help to counter the U.S. sanctions that have been a major hurdle in China’s progress in the chip field. Thus, China Telecom would likely have used Huawei chips for its newly developed AI models over Nvidia and any other U.S. alternative.

Apart from Huawei, another AI chip supplier could be the Cambricon. These companies would have helped China Telecom in building the new AI models with immense efficiency.

Huawei has started sampling the new Ascend 910C chips to some Chinese AI firms. The company is expected to officially introduce the new processor this month. Ascend 910B is expected to extend the Chinese customers for the company in the high-end AI chip market.

China Telecom reportedly chose Huawei AI chips over Nvidia (Image credits: China Telecom)

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LightReading learned that the US ban on Huawei 5G network equipment did not affect the company much. Despite huge struggles, the company’s sales in the 5G products department increased by a tenth last year with a net profit hike of 145%.

Notably, these rates are ‘far ahead’ of its main rivals like Ericsson and Nokia. A major credit goes to Huawei’s new strategies in the network solutions field. The company diversified into new businesses and remained highly competitive in the network arena.

Huawei’s MIMO consists of top-of-the-range antennas and is one of the most advanced 5G techs. It is a “generation ahead” of Ericsson’s best products, as per the report.

The MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) appears as lighter equipment that reduces pressure on masts and can easily be transferred to different places. Seeing such advanced 5G network technologies, an executive of a foreign company said:

“US sanctions have not had a noticeable impact on Huawei’s technology competitiveness.”

Another source of the latest report cites that Huawei seemed using TSMC-stocked chips for its network operators. But that couldn’t be a long-term thing. The company has already proved that it can use an advanced 7nm chip for its base stations.

Huawei 5G equipment didn’t face major impact of US ban, says report (Image Credits: Huawei)

AI and smartphone chips seem an area where Huawei has to make more efforts. But other than that, the company already appears self-reliant in many tech fields.

The US authorities tried to pull off Huawei and finish its existence in the 5G market. It thought of treating Huawei just like ZTE and other Chinese tech vendors.

ZTE faced critical conditions after the U.S. sanctions. It nearly went out of business a few years back. However, the case is quite different and positive on Huawei’s side.

The Chinese tech giant struggled initially following the U.S. restrictions on its 5G network equipment. The “rip and replace” program is still in action across various countries and regions. Yet, the company is now doing great in the network section.

On the other hand, foreign telecoms are searching for alternatives to Huawei’s network equipment. Germany, for instance, has given a lot of time (till 2029) to its telecom operators to replace Huawei radio access network and work on their network management.

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ByteDance is a Chinese IT company and the developer of the famous video-sharing platforms: TikTok and Douyin. It also makes large language models like Doubao.

Now a new input says that ByteDance is planning to develop another AI LLM model using Huawei Ascend 910B chips. The news is yet to be confirmed by the company. However, the current ordered chips figure shows that the IT firm may choose Huawei over Nvidia.

Yes, ByteDance has already purchased more than 100000 Huawei Ascend 910B AI chips this year. Due to tight supply and production challenges, the IT company has received 30% of the order as of July 2024. Huawei may soon deliver the left-out order.

Further details state that ByteDance has opted for the Huawei AI chips as an alternative to the Nvidia H20 chips. Following the U.S. restrictions, Nvidia has to serve Chinese firms with low-efficient chips that are good enough to perform but aren’t very reliable. As a result, the Chinese companies turned towards native suppliers.

Companies like ByteDance hope that Huawei and its AI techs are perfect. Even though the Ascend 910B chips aren’t as advanced as Nvidia’s chips. But their performance level and efficiency are far better than the A100 processors (20% more efficient).

On the other hand, using Ascend AI chips will ultimately reduce China’s dependency on foreign chipmakers like Nvidia. Huawei is also making efforts to enhance its chip production and become more efficient in the semiconductor industry.

ByteDance ordered 100000 Huawei Ascend 910B chips to replace Nvidia (Image Credits: Huawei)

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As noted by Bloomberg, Chinese regulators directed local firms and enterprise customers to prohibit Nvidia H20 usage. The H20 is a China-specific chip. It’s a special but low-end version of the Nvidia H800. The chip is used to train AI models.

Following the U.S. ban, Chinese companies relied on Nvidia’s chipsets for AI models and other related technologies. However, China now aims to support its native techs and firms over U.S. products, increasing its self-reliance and economic growth.

Inputs reveal that Chinese regulators like the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a set of new rules under ‘window guidance’. It encourages the firms to switch to local chipmakers and reduce the Nvidia use as far as possible.

Huawei and Cambricon are currently the top AI chipmakers in China. A direct prohibition of Nvidia chips in the region will ultimately help the native chip producers to increase their market share. The aim is to support native AI startups over foreign firms.

People related to the matter say that it’s not possible to completely ban Nvidia chips in the region. Many companies are looking to develop the best AI system which requires foreign processors instead of local options. But the condition is that the Nvidia chips’ usage should be minimal.

Another input notes that Nvidia shares fell to 3.9% ($119.26) by Friday. When asked to the CEO of Nvidia – Jensen Huang about the entire matter, he said:

“The first thing we have to do is comply with whatever policies and regulations that are being imposed. And, meanwhile, do the best we can to compete in the markets that we serve. We have a lot of customers there that depend on us, and we’ll do our best to support them.”

While Chinese chipmakers are readying alternatives to Nvidia’s chips, local companies are stockpiling foreign chips before the U.S. export controls reach a new level. For instance, ByteDance ordered 200000+ Nvidia H20 chips this year worth $2 billion.

Huawei, on the other hand, is also taking major steps in this matter. After months of internal testing, the company is now sending its Ascend 910C AI chip samples to top tech firms, expanding its strength in the AI chip sector. Read More…

It would be worth seeing how the next-gen Huawei AI chips will counterattack Nvidia H20 processors.

China directs local firms to buy Huawei AI chips over Nvidia H20 (Image Credits: Huawei)

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U.S. restrictions have turned many Chinese firms to Huawei in the search for AI chipsets. And ByteDance is no exception to this theory. A new report states that ByteDance plans to develop and train its large language AI model with Huawei chips.

In this AI model-making, the Ascend 910B chips are in consideration. The respective processors can outperform Nvidia’s A100 and claim to offer better GPU performance. It provides 20% more efficient computing power than Nvidia’s chipsets.

The report further notes that ByteDance’s new model will likely be less powerful in computing parameters and capability than its Doubao. Yet it would be efficient.

AI training models need huge amounts of data and a powerful AI chip that can easily manage it. Even though Nvidia premium GPUs are the perfect choice for AI models, the U.S. sanctions forced China to look for other alternatives over Nvidia Chinese chip variants.

ByteDance hasn’t confirmed the news yet. Although three of the persons related to this matter said that the app developer could take this big step to pace ahead in the AI race. Another person said that it’s still unclear if Huawei chips will be used.

Meanwhile, a TikTok spokesperson – Michael Hughes responded on this matter, saying: “The entire premise here is wrong. No new model is being developed.”

Ascend 910B is familiar for its efficiency. Hence, if ByteDance ever prefers making an AI model then it might opt for Huawei’s chips. The company has already ordered 100000 Ascend 910B chips starting this year. But till now, it July received 30000.

This tight supply of Ascend 910B ultimately made ByteDance halt the development of its new AI model. The company has been one of the biggest customers of Huawei’s AI chips. On the other hand, it’s the top user of Nvidia H20 AI processors.

The overall situation regarding the ByteDance partnership with Huawei over a new AI model is quite unclear. However, the matter may soon come into clear light with more details. ByteDance AI model running on Ascend 910B will surely help Huawei reach new heights in the AI chip market.

ByteDance to build new AI model using Huawei chips, says report (Image Credits: Huawei)

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