Huawei is seeing renewed momentum in the artificial intelligence hardware space, with its latest AI chip attracting strong interest from major Chinese technology firms including ByteDance and Alibaba. According to sources familiar with the matter, both companies are planning to place orders for Huawei’s newly developed 950PR chip following successful early testing.
The development marks a significant milestone for Huawei, which had previously struggled to secure large-scale adoption of its earlier Ascend 910C chip among private-sector tech giants. This time, however, the improved capabilities of the 950PR—particularly its better compatibility with Nvidia’s CUDA software ecosystem and faster response performance—have made it more appealing to developers and enterprises.
Huawei has already begun distributing sample units of the chip to potential customers in January, with plans to start mass production soon. The company is aiming to ship around 750,000 units of the 950PR this year, with full-scale deliveries expected to ramp up in the second half of 2026.
The chip is priced at approximately 50,000 yuan ($6,900) per unit, while a higher-end version featuring faster high-bandwidth memory (HBM) is expected to cost around 70,000 yuan. Although the 950PR offers only incremental improvements in raw computing power compared to its predecessor, it is optimized for inference workloads—an area experiencing rapid growth as companies shift from training AI models to deploying them in real-world applications.
The rising interest in Huawei’s chip also reflects broader shifts in the global AI semiconductor market. Ongoing U.S. export restrictions on advanced chips from companies like Nvidia have pushed Chinese firms to explore domestic alternatives, accelerating adoption of locally developed technologies.
If confirmed, the planned orders from ByteDance and Alibaba could significantly strengthen Huawei’s position in the AI hardware ecosystem and signal growing confidence in China’s ability to develop competitive semiconductor solutions. The move also highlights how geopolitical factors and supply chain constraints are reshaping technology choices for major global companies.
