Microsoft Will Use Huawei Ai Chip And Nvidia's Monopoly Is Challenged

According to media reports, Microsoft and Huawei are discussing the possibility of Microsoft using Huawei's newly developed artificial intelligence chips in its Chinese data center. It is not certain whether the two parties will reach an agreement.

At the same time, Microsoft and other cloud service providers use NVIDIA chips to develop artificial intelligence features such as voice and face recognition for software such as Cortana and Bing.

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and the emergence of applications, NVIDIA's graphics processing unit provides the computing power to handle data-intensive artificial intelligence tasks.

For Huawei, the competition with Nvidia will be an extremely difficult task. NVIDIA has a near-monopoly position in the chip market that powers computationally intensive processes trained by artificial intelligence algorithms.

If it can reach a deal with Microsoft, Huawei will be able to break the monopoly of artificial intelligence chip maker Nvidia. Although the US government currently prohibits Huawei from using telecommunications technology in the United States, Microsoft's support may help Huawei sell more chips and servers to other customers around the world.

Now that Huawei has produced commercial samples of its new chips, the new chips can play a similar role to NVIDIA chips. Some Huawei engineers are customizing the software for operating the chip to meet Microsoft standards. Engineers also tested the chip by running Microsoft's algorithm on a new Huawei chip.

In fact, Microsoft and Huawei have already cooperated. Last year, Microsoft provided applications such as Office 365 through Huawei's cloud computing service.

According to people familiar with the matter, in the past few months, Huawei executives have been marketing their new artificial intelligence chips and other products to Harry Shum, executive vice president of corporate intelligence strategy and research at Microsoft.

Schum is one of the keynote speakers at the Huawei Connect conference in Shanghai next month. It is expected that Huawei will discuss its artificial intelligence strategy in front of its business partners and suppliers, as well as industry analysts and journalists. 

In addition to producing smartphones, Huawei also produces servers and other devices that make up its global telecommunications network and cloud computing infrastructure. Huawei's revenue last year exceeded $90 billion, and it has some of the next-generation mobile network 5G technologies. Possible technical patents.

Huawei is currently adding artificial intelligence to its servers, which is also used by NVIDIA chips. However, Huawei has been secretly developing its own artificial intelligence chips for more than a year. This will enable Huawei to introduce artificial intelligence into all its services (including data center devices). One of the bigger initiatives. Huawei's artificial intelligence project is code-named "Project Da Vinci."

In addition, Huawei is also one of the largest chip developers in China, and its subsidiary, HiSilicon Semiconductor, is designing chips for mobile phones, surveillance cameras and telecom base stations. More and more technology giants are developing their own artificial intelligence chips, and Huawei is one of them.

By designing its own artificial intelligence chips for the data center, Huawei is trying to differentiate its products and services from its competitors. For similar reasons, Huawei has also developed its own smartphone chip, which distinguishes itself from other Chinese mobile phone manufacturers that rely entirely on external chip suppliers such as Qualcomm (QCOM).

A Huawei manager who asked not to be named told reporters that considering the dominant position of Nvidia, Huawei regards its expansion in the artificial intelligence chip market as a long-term battle that requires great patience.

He said: "The artificial intelligence chip market is large enough to accommodate more than one company, and we are trying to offer another option.”