Chinese AI chip makers sell themselves at Shanghai conference with Nvidia comparisons
- Firms such as Huawei and Moore Threads were invoking Nvidia’s name at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, but Chinese hardware still lags behind

“China’s computing clusters are changing from being foreign-GPU-dominated to a combination of Chinese GPUs and foreign ones,” Enflame chief ecosystem officer Li Xingyu said during a session on Friday. “There is a problem of a lack of demand, so much of the computational power in China still sits idle.”
“Further lowering the barriers to using home-grown computational power is key to increasing its application in China,” he added.

Cooperating with Shanghai-based chip designer Enflame, AI solutions firm Infinigence – another start-up backed by Chinese social media and video gaming giant Tencent – is offering compute resources that use a variety of chips from Nvidia and other vendors, including Chinese GPU makers. “Companies don’t need to worry about which GPUs they use,” the company said.
Nvidia is not allowed to export its most advanced chips to China under US export restrictions. Washington has also added major Chinese chip developers to a trade blacklist, making it hard for them to find foundries to manufacture their designs. Huawei – which has claimed its Ascend 910B is on par with Nvidia’s A100 – is among those facing manufacturing hurdles, as it was initially blacklisted in 2019 and has seen sanctions tighten since then.