Baidu Placed AI Chip Order from Huawei in Shift Away From Nvidia

Baidu ordered AI chips from Huawei this year, Reuters reported citing two people familiar with the matter, adding to signs that U.S. pressure is prompting Chinese acceptance of the firm's products as an alternative to Nvidia's. From the report: One of the people said Baidu, one of China's leading AI firms, which operates the Ernie large language model, placed the order in August, ahead of widely anticipated new rules by the U.S. government that in October tightened restrictions on exports of chips and chip tools to China, including those of U.S. chip giant Nvidia. Baidu ordered 1,600 of Huawei's 910B Ascend AI chips - which the Chinese firm developed as an alternative to Nvidia's A100 chip - for 200 servers, the source said, adding that by October, Huawei had delivered more 60% of the order, or about 1,000 chips, to Baidu. The second person said that the order's total value was approximately 450 million yuan ($61.83 million) and that Huawei was to deliver all of the chips by the end of this year. Although the order is tiny relative to the thousands of chips top Chinese tech firms have historically ordered from Nvidia, the sources said it was significant, as it showed how some firms could shift away from the U.S. company.

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