Advertisement

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

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
9
Shanghai-based chip designer Enflame showcased its Cloudblazer T20 and T21 AI-training chips at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference. Photo: Che Pan
Che Panin Beijing
A group of Chinese graphics processing unit (GPU) developers are taking advantage of Nvidia’s absence in China at the country’s largest artificial intelligence (AI) show to promote their offerings, although they face problems related to manufacturing and software ecosystem bottlenecks.
Iluvatar Corex, Moore Threads, Tencent Holdings-backed Enflame Technology, Sophgo, Huawei Technologies’ Ascend were the centre of attention last week at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, where the California-based designer of the chips against which all other AI GPUs are measured had no physical presence. Nvidia’s name, however, was invoked constantly at the booths of Chinese chip makers comparing their own offerings to those of the US tech giant.

“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.

Moore Threads’ MCCX D800 AI server displayed at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on July 5, 2024. Photo: Che Pan
Moore Threads’ MCCX D800 AI server displayed at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on July 5, 2024. Photo: Che Pan

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.

Advertisement