Huawei’s Ascend 950PR AI Chip Wins Chinese Customers by Mimicking CUDA via CANN Next, Threatening NVIDIA

Huawei announced the Ascend 950PR AI chip.

CANN Next adds CUDA compatibility and a SIMT programming model for the Ascend 950PR.

CANN Next enables near-drop-in CUDA replacements for equivalent workflows.

Huawei says the Ascend 950PR is more compatible with NVIDIA's CUDA system, has better response speeds, and aims to be a direct replacement for NVIDIA in training and inference workloads.

Hyperscalers like ByteDance and Alibaba plan to place orders, and Huawei expects to produce 750,000 chips.