US says Huawei will be able to produce no more than 200,000 AI chips in 2025

In 2025, the Chinese company Huawei Technologies will be able to produce no more than 200,000 advanced chips for artificial intelligence, said a senior official of the US Department of Commerce, Jeffrey Kessler, during a congressional hearing, writes Reuters.

He said these chips, including the Ascend 910C, will remain almost entirely within the Chinese market. While production volumes do not meet Huawei's demand, US authorities warn that China is rapidly closing the technological gap with the US.

Since 2019, Washington has imposed strict restrictions on the export of high-tech equipment to China, including chips and equipment for their production, in order to curb the growth of China's military and technological power. As a result, Huawei has begun to develop its own alternatives to Western products, in particular as a replacement for products from NVIDIA, the world leader in the AI chip market.

Kessler noted that one should not relax due to the supposedly small number of chips produced , because China is investing massively in the development of this industry. The White House also acknowledged the high growth rates. According to the "head of AI" David Sachs, China lags behind the United States in the development of AI models by only 3–6 months , although in hardware this lag is 1–2 years.

By the way, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei recently confirmed that their chips are currently a generation behind American ones, but the company is investing over $25 billion in improving performance.

At the same time, although NVIDIA chips are still considered the most powerful in the world, the company is losing ground in the Chinese market due to restrictions from the United States. NVIDIA has openly criticized these measures, and its position is supported by one of its main competitors, Arm.