An investigation into Huawei Technologies Co’s latest AI offering has uncovered advanced processors made by manufacturing partner Nvidia Corp. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., indicated that China is still struggling to make its own advanced chips in sufficient quantities.
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(Bloomberg) — An investigation into Huawei Technologies Co.’s latest AI offering. has found an advanced processor made by its manufacturing partner Nvidia Corp. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., indicated that China is still struggling to make its own advanced chips in sufficient quantities. .
Canada-based research firm TechInsights recently dismantled at least one of the top Shenzhen conglomerate’s artificial intelligence accelerators and found an Ascend 910B chip manufactured by TSMC, according to people familiar with the device. He requested anonymity to discuss the unusual report.
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Huawei has been on the US sanctions list since August 2020, meaning the company is banned from doing business with TSMC and its contract chipmakers without a US government license. In the past year, Huawei has relied on its local partner Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. for production, including the 7-nanometer chip launched last August in Huawei smartphones.
US officials have repeatedly cast doubt on SMIC’s ability to manufacture 7-nm chips at scale and questioned the performance of the components. Huawei’s use of TSMC’s output for its latest AI chips could be a sign that reinforces that narrative. It is unclear how and when Huawei acquired TSMC chips. The Taiwanese chipmaker said it will stop all shipments to Huawei after September 15, 2020, the company said when asked about the TechInsights report.
“TSMC is a law-abiding company, and we are committed to complying with all applicable rules and regulations, including applicable export controls. In accordance with regulatory requirements, TSMC has not supplied Huawei since mid-September 2020,” the company said in an email statement. “We proactively communicated with the US Department of Commerce regarding this matter in the report. We are not aware that TSMC is the subject of an investigation at this time.
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In its own statement, Huawei said that it will not “produce chips through TSMC after the implementation of the amendment made by the US Department of Commerce to the FDPR that targets Huawei in 2020,” a reference to the foreign direct product rule – a US trade restriction. “Huawei has never launched the 910B chip,” the company said.
TechInsights declined to comment. A Commerce Department spokesman said the agency’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which is responsible for semiconductor trade restrictions, “is aware of the reported allegations of potential violations of U.S. export controls.”
“We cannot comment on whether there is an ongoing investigation,” the spokesman said. “BIS is committed to ensuring compliance with the robust controls it has put in place related to China’s advanced semiconductor acquisitions.”
BIS officials met with TSMC executives in mid-October on issues related to the chipmaker’s supply chain, including whether third-party distributors could give China the ability to access restricted technology, according to one of the people, who described the meeting as collaborative. The meeting did not touch on the TechInsights report, the person said.
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The information was reported before Commerce Department officials had contacted TSMC about whether the company had produced chips for Huawei.
Huawei’s 910 accelerator – the precursor to the 910B – was already in production in 2019, before the US government expanded sanctions against the Chinese telecom giant. Huawei kept TSMC chips at the time, which allowed the company to use 5-nanometer TSMC chips, the previous generation of 7-nanometer, in laptops released late last year.
AI accelerators – the chips used to develop artificial intelligence models – have become a valuable commodity in the tech industry. Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia uses TSMC to produce the market-leading version, and has seen sales and prices explode in the past two years. The US has restricted exports of advanced Nvidia chips to China, and Huawei is offering accelerators as a domestic alternative.
It is unclear whether Huawei had planned or placed orders for the 910B chip before the blacklist. The processor will first be found in server products starting in 2022, according to the Center for Security and Emerging Technologies think tank in Washington.
Since getting light in Chinese news outlets in 2023, although Huawei has not officially hosted a launch event. Iflytek Co. open a new server product with an AI accelerator in August 2023, and Baidu Inc. also ordered more than 1,000 units of the 910B last year, according to Taipei-based research firm TrendForce.
—With assistance from Gao Yuan and Jessica Sui.
(Update with Huawei’s response in paragraph six.)
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