When we think of AI hardware, NVIDIA comes to mind. The company produces much of the hardware needed to power AI data centers around the world. You’d think that other semiconductor companies, like Intel or AMD, would be a rival to NVIDIA, but according to its CEO, Jensen Huang, Huawei is a closer competitor than you think.
Huawei is NVIDIA’s true rival
As we said, NVIDIA’s hardware is used in AI development worldwide. While AMD and NVIDIA are typically seen as rivals in the GPU space, AMD doesn’t even come close to AI development.
So, why is Huawei considered a closer rival than Intel or AMD? Given the sanctions placed on Huawei by the US government, you’d think the company would be struggling. However, the sanctions placed by the US government turned out to be a double-edged sword. It prevents US companies from doing business with Huawei and vice versa.
This includes NVIDIA, which was forced to ship less powerful AI chips to China. In turn, this allowed Huawei to dominate the Chinese market, which is too big for the world to ignore. The NVIDIA CEO had criticized the move, claiming that the export controls cost NVIDIA a huge sum of money while also allowing Huawei to gain more ground locally.
Huang was quoted as saying, “The local companies are very, very talented and very determined, and the export control gave them the spirit, the energy and the government support to accelerate their development.”
Huawei’s slow but steady comeback
It’s true that after being placed on the US Entity List, Huawei suffered some serious consequences in its smartphone business. Huawei was initially poised to overtake both Apple and Samsung in the smartphone space, but following the ban, it fell off.
However, let’s not forget that the Chinese market is huge. While Huawei lost access to the US market, demand for its phones in China is still strong. The company has been quietly building itself back up. This includes launching its own Android alternative with HarmonyOS. It also recently attempted to make its own chipsets.
Granted, it’s not as advanced as Qualcomm’s stuff, but it’s slowly but surely getting there.
