Huawei unveils new AI Chip Despite US Blacklist Costing it $10 Billion
Chinese tech giant Huawei revealed that the costs of the US blacklist on the company’s profits came in at around $10 billion. This figure was revised down from earlier estimates by the company, putting the potential losses at $30 billion. The company delivered these revised numbers at an unveiling for its newly designed AI chip and computing framework. Both of these systems were designed to break the company’s dependence on US suppliers since there is no end in sight to the ongoing trade war between China and the US.
The $10Bn loss tag was surprisingly positive, given the initial fears of the company that they would be facing severe decreases in its overseas sales. Huawei is one of the more popular mobile phone manufacturers in the US, and before the blacklist, it controlled as much as 9.27% of the market. The sales were likely to have been supported by an increase in local consumption. While not completely offsetting the impact of the American market, local consumers have decreased the losses the company faced this quarter.
An Eye for an Eye
The US government issued a ‘reprieve’ of sorts late last week, allowing the mobile manufacturer to retain the agreements it already established that wasn’t affected by the initial trade sanctions. Deputy Chairman of Huawei Eric Xu states that the reprieve was meaningless and the company intended to pursue business while under the ban. The statement introduces Huawei’s Ascend 910 AI processor that would be fitted into the newest iterations of the Huawei Ascend 910. In addition to the chip, the company also introduced an AI computing framework designed to utilize it. Sources claim that the structure doubled the speed of processing when compared to Google’s TensorFlow on the Ascend 910.
ARM is the primary suppliers of chips for Huawei handsets, and in light of the recent blacklisting of the company, the American chip manufacturer has opted to halt further deals with the Chinese mobile manufacturer. The AI chip comes hot on the heels of the announcement by the company of a new operating system called HarmonyOS that they intend to use to replace Google’s Android OS in future releases.
