According to a report from Deutsche Welle, the German public radio station, leading American chip giant Nvidia has identified Huawei as its "biggest competitor" in a filing submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing also mentioned other competitors such as Intel, AMD, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Amazon, and Microsoft.
Nvidia stated that Huawei is a strong competitor in the field of chips used for artificial intelligence (AI), including graphics processing units (GPUs) and central processing units (CPUs).
Despite Nvidia's position as the third-largest company by market capitalization in the US stock market, trailing only behind Microsoft and Apple, the Chinese market presents a different scenario. The company has been impacted by US export controls on its development in China.
So why has this situation arisen?
Traditionally, Nvidia has been known for its dominance in the GPU field, while Huawei has focused on the telecommunications sector, with limited overlap between the two. However, in the era of AI, they have quietly become competitors.
Based on current information, Nvidia considers Huawei its biggest competitor for two main reasons:
Firstly, there is a significant shift occurring in the global landscape of advanced process chips that drive AI technology.
According to the report, Nvidia stated in its filing that Huawei competes with it in four out of its five major business categories.
Nvidia pointed out that Huawei is competitive in supplying chips such as GPUs and CPUs used for AI.
The company also positions Huawei as a cloud services company capable of designing its own hardware and software to enhance AI computing.
Nvidia stated, "Some of our competitors may have more marketing, financial, distribution, and manufacturing resources than we do and may be better able to adapt to customer or technology changes."
Secondly, due to a series of US export restrictions on AI chips, Nvidia is unable to export advanced chips to China, making Huawei's products an excellent alternative.
Analysts have noted that Huawei's Ascend series of AI chips, particularly the Ascend 910B launched last year, are considered substitutes for Nvidia's A100 chips in the Chinese market.
Previously, companies like Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, and others were significant customers for Nvidia. However, as the US has intensified export controls on China, Chinese companies have started to reduce their reliance on American technology. Last year, Baidu ordered 1,600 Huawei 910B chips.
Analysts estimate that the AI chip market in China is valued at around $7 billion.
Quoting Nvidia's CFO, Colette Kress, the South China Morning Post reported, "Growth is strong in all regions except China. Our data center business revenue in China has dropped significantly after the US government implemented export controls."
Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, has already regarded Huawei as a "very fierce" competitor in the AI chip market during an interview in December last year. In Singapore, he told reporters that Huawei, Intel, and an increasing number of semiconductor startups pose a serious threat to Nvidia in the AI accelerator market. He noted that China used to account for about 20% of Nvidia's revenue.
He believes that China will eventually find ways to access Nvidia's cutting-edge technology or inspire domestic chip manufacturers. However, Huang emphasized that despite this, Nvidia maintains a lead of about ten years over Huawei.
