For Huawei to win Chinese clients from Nvidia, it must replicate the ecosystem Nvidia created, including supporting clients to move their data and models to Huawei's own platform. However, this is a challenging task as many U.S. firms already hold key patents for GPUs. Huawei's own version, CANN, is much more limited in terms of the AI models it is capable of training, making the company's chips far from a plug-and-play substitute for Nvidia.
Key takeaways:
- U.S. restrictions on the export of advanced AI chips to China could provide an opportunity for Huawei to expand in its $7 billion home market as Nvidia is forced to retreat.
- Huawei's Ascend AI chips are comparable to Nvidia's in terms of raw computing power, but lag behind in performance and are not a direct substitute.
- For Huawei to win Chinese clients from Nvidia, it must replicate the ecosystem Nvidia created, including supporting clients to move their data and models to Huawei's own platform.
- Intellectual property rights are a significant challenge, as many U.S. firms already hold key patents for GPUs.