Huawei chief hasn't a chip worry in the world

Asia Times

5 hours ago

In a recent interview with China's state-run People's Daily, Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei provided an assessment of the Chinese semiconductor industry that many might find surprising. An English version of the interview was published by the Communist Party-run Global Times.
'There's actually no need to worry about the chip issue,' Huawei's chief said. 'By leveraging methods such as superposition and clustering, computational results can match the most advanced global standards. In terms of software, thousands upon thousands of open-source software will meet the needs of the entire society in the future.'
This optimism comes from objective analysis supported by Huawei's own experience, with some self-deprecation:
'There are many companies in China making chips, and many are doing well; Huawei is just one of them. The US has exaggerated Huawei's achievements – the company isn't that powerful yet. We need to work hard to live up to their evaluation.
'Our single chips still lag behind the US by a generation. We use mathematics to compensate for physics, non-Moore's Law approaches to complement Moore's Law, and group computing to make up for single-chip limitations, which can also achieve practical results.'
This squares with the conclusion of Dylan Patel and his colleague at SemiAnalysis, who found that Huawei's Ascend 910C AI processor is more impressive when used in the company's CloudMatrix 394 rack-scale AI data center solution, which is a complete system consisting of 384 Ascend 910C processors, servers, networking, storage, power management and cooling.
In their estimation, the CloudMatrix 394 'competes directly' with Nvidia's top-end GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip.
'The engineering advantage,' they write, 'is at the system level not just at the chip level, with innovation at the accelerator, networking, optics, and software layers… Huawei is a generation behind in chips, but its scale-up solution is arguably a generation ahead of Nvidia and AMD's current products on the market.'
With regard to the ongoing effort to develop the basic semiconductor devices needed to support the country's consumer electronics, automotive and other industries, Ren said, 'China has opportunities in low- and mid-range chips, with dozens or even hundreds of chip companies working hard. The opportunities are even greater for compound semiconductors.'
One prominent example is China's rapid advance in silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors, which have become standard in electric vehicles (EVs). Approximately two-thirds of the world's electric vehicles (EVs) are manufactured in China, making this both an obvious opportunity and a strategic necessity.
Compared with ordinary silicon, SiC-based power devices are more energy-efficient and reliable. They improve the performance of not only electric vehicles and battery chargers, but also industrial machinery, solar and wind power and data centers.
In March, BYD announced a new high-speed EV charging system, which enables 400 kilometers of driving in five minutes – about twice the performance of Tesla's supercharger.
According to DigiTimes, 'Silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductors played an instrumental role in this technological advancement, as key advantages of the wide bandgap material, including high voltage and temperature resistance and low energy loss, help enhance the efficiency and reliability of electric drive systems to support high-voltage charging.'
Nomad Semi wrote that, 'This achievement was made possible by BYD Semiconductor's breakthrough in high-power 1,500V SiC chips. It marks the first large-scale application of 1500V SiC chips in the global automotive industry.'
BYD is also starting to make its own SiC wafers, which should give it a complete internal SiC supply chain from substrates to chips and modules.
Established in 2002, BYD Semiconductor also makes other types of discrete power semiconductors, power management ICs, microcontroller units (MCUs), sensors and optoelectronic devices used in new energy vehicles (NEVs, which include both battery-powered and hybrid vehicles). BYD appears to be well on its way to self-sufficiency in automotive semiconductors.
Ren also emphasized the importance of theoretical scientific research. 'We must understand and support those doing theoretical work,' he said. 'We need to appreciate their vision; their great, quiet dedication… those engaged in theoretical research are the hope for our country's future.'
Huawei is doing its part: 'We invest 180 billion yuan (US$25 billion) in research and development each year, with approximately 60 billion yuan allocated to basic theoretical research, which is not subject to performance evaluation. About 120 billion yuan is invested in product research and development, which is subject to evaluation. Without theoretical support, there can be no breakthroughs, and we will not be able to catch up with the US.'
For example, more than 20 years of research into hybrid stochastic number systems has led to the development of a Hybrid Stochastic Computing SoC (System-on-Chip) for high-performance computing at the School of Electronic and Information Engineering of the Beijing University of Aeronautic and Astronautics (BUAA).
Led by Professor Li Hongge, the research and development team combined binary (0 – 1) and stochastic (probability-based) values, in-memory computing, and heterogenous SoC design (multiple specialized processing units) using open-source RISC-V architecture, which is beyond the reach of US government sanctions.
As reported by the Guangming Daily, the hybrid chip features higher fault tolerance, stronger resistance to interference, and much greater energy efficiency than conventional binary digital chips.
As translated by TrendForce, 'Professor Li explains that stochastic computing expresses values through the probability of a CMOS logic signal remaining 'high' during a given time period. In other words, the frequency of high-level pulses represents the numerical probability.'
BUAA is already applying the technology to touch recognition, instrument display panels, and flight control. Beyond that, the research team is working on more complex functions such as voice and image processing and AI model acceleration. The chips themselves are fabricated by the Chinese IC foundry SMIC.
Similar R&D programs are underway in the US, Japan and Europe, but for the time being, China leads the world in the practical application of hybrid stochastic computing.
The negative implications for the US policy of technology containment should be obvious.
'For the US semiconductor industry, China is gone,' electronics industry analyst Handel Jones told The New York Times.
Jones is the founder and CEO of California consulting firm International Business Strategies, Inc. 'He projects that Chinese companies will have a majority share of chips in every major category in China by 2030.'
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