Huawei Unveils CloudMatrix 384: A Powerful AI Computing System Challenging Nvidia's Dominance

Huawei shows off AI computing system to rival Nvidia's top product

SHANGHAI, July 26 (Reuters) - China's Huawei Technologies showed off an AI computing system on Saturday that one industry expert has said rivals Nvidia's most advanced offering, as the Chinese technology giant seeks to capture market share in the country's growing artificial intelligence sector. The CloudMatrix 384 system made its first public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai where companies showcase their latest AI innovations, drawing a large crowd to the company's booth. The system has drawn close attention from the global AI community since Huawei (HWT.UL) first announced it in April. Industry analysts view it as a direct competitor to Nvidia's (NVDA.O), opens new tab GB200 NVL72, the U.S. chipmaker's most advanced system-level product currently available in the market. Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research group SemiAnalysis, said in an April article that Huawei now had AI system capabilities that could beat Nvidia. Huawei staff at its WAIC booth declined to comment when asked to introduce the CloudMatrix 384 system. A spokesperson for Huawei did not respond to questions. Huawei has become widely regarded as China's most promising domestic supplier of chips essential for AI development, even though the company faces U.S. export restrictions. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Bloomberg in May that Huawei had been "moving quite fast" and named the CloudMatrix as an example. The CloudMatrix 384 incorporates 384 of Huawei's latest 910C chips and outperforms Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 on some metrics, which uses 72 B200 chips, according to SemiAnalysis. The performance stems from Huawei's system design capabilities, which compensate for weaker individual chip performance through the use of more chips and system-level innovations, SemiAnalysis said. Huawei says the system uses "supernode" architecture that allows the chips to interconnect at super-high speeds and in June, Huawei Cloud CEO Zhang Pingan said the CloudMatrix 384 system was operational on Huawei's cloud platform. Reporting by Brenda Goh and Liam Mo; Editing by Hugh Lawson Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Huawei shows off AI computing system to rival Nvidia's top product - The Economic Times

The CloudMatrix 384 system made its first public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai where companies showcase their latest AI innovations, drawing a large crowd to the company's booth.China's Huawei Technologies showed off an AI computing system on Saturday that one industry expert has said rivals Nvidia's most advanced offering, as the Chinese technology giant seeks to capture market share in the country's growing artificial intelligence sector. The CloudMatrix 384 system made its first public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai where companies showcase their latest AI innovations, drawing a large crowd to the company's booth. The system has drawn close attention from the global AI community since Huawei first announced it in April. Industry analysts view it as a direct competitor to Nvidia's GB200 NVL72, the U.S. chipmaker's most advanced system-level product currently available in the market. Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research group SemiAnalysis, said in an April article that Huawei now had AI system capabilities that could beat Nvidia. Huawei staff at its WAIC booth declined to comment when asked to introduce the CloudMatrix 384 system. A spokesperson for Huawei did not respond to questions. Huawei has become widely regarded as China's most promising domestic supplier of chips essential for AI development, even though the company faces U.S. export restrictions. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Bloomberg in May that Huawei had been "moving quite fast" and named the CloudMatrix as an example. The CloudMatrix 384 incorporates 384 of Huawei's latest 910C chips and outperforms Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 on some metrics, which uses 72 B200 chips, according to SemiAnalysis. The performance stems from Huawei's system design capabilities, which compensate for weaker individual chip performance through the use of more chips and system-level innovations, SemiAnalysis said. Huawei says the system uses "supernode" architecture that allows the chips to interconnect at super-high speeds and in June, Huawei Cloud CEO Zhang Pingan said the CloudMatrix 384 system was operational on Huawei's cloud platform.

Huawei Showcases Its NVIDIA GB200-Equivalent CloudMatrix AI Cluster for the First Time to The Public, Flaunting China's Cutting-Edge AI Hardware Breakthrough

Huawei has been making massive strides in the AI segment, and now, the company has showcased its CloudMatrix rack-scale cluster for the first time, revealing a gigantic breakthrough. When it comes to Chinese AI firms competing against NVIDIA's options, Huawei is undoubtedly at the forefront with its respective hardware, not just in terms of performance but also availability. The company has been more popular for its AI accelerator, coming in the "Ascend" lineup; however, Huawei recently expanded to rack-scale solutions, and they made a massive impact. The Chinese firm managed to compete with NVIDIA's top-end offering, and it reached to a point where even Jensen started to worry about Huawei's advancements. Although the CloudMatrix 384 has been discussed internally, Huawei has not publicly showcased it until today. At the WAIC conference held in the Shanghai World Expo Center (via MyDrivers), Huawei showcased the CloudMatrix cluster for the first time, naming it the Atlas 900 A3 Superpod. In terms of the specifications, the CloudMatrix 384 (CM384) AI cluster features 384 Ascend 910C chips connected in an "all-to-all topology" configuration. Interestingly, Huawei has managed to cover the architectural flaws by housing five times as many Ascend chips as NVIDIA's GB200. A CloudMatrix cluster is said to deliver 300 PetaFLOPS of BF16 computing, almost two times higher than GB200 NVL72. However, the only drawback here is the power CloudMatrix 384 is expected to consume, which is said to be 3.9x the power of a GB200 NVL72 and somewhat "awful" perf/watt figures across AI workloads. The price of a single CloudMatrix 384 AI cluster is claimed to be $8 million, which is almost three times higher than NVIDIA's GB200 NVL72 configuration, so the key motive behind Huawei's product is not to provide a cost-effective performance, rather a product that is made through in-house resources and is capable enough to compete with Western alternatives. This particular solution is verified by NVIDIA CEO Jensen himself, who claims that Huawei has managed to compete with Grace Blackwell systems.

Huawei shows off AI computing system to rival Nvidia's top product

SHANGHAI (Reuters) -China's Huawei Technologies showed off an AI computing system on Saturday that one industry expert has said rivals Nvidia's most advanced offering, as the Chinese technology giant seeks to capture market share in the country's growing artificial intelligence sector. The CloudMatrix 384 system made its first public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai where companies showcase their latest AI innovations, drawing a large crowd to the company's booth. The system has drawn close attention from the global AI community since Huawei first announced it in April. Industry analysts view it as a direct competitor to Nvidia's GB200 NVL72, the U.S. chipmaker's most advanced system-level product currently available in the market. Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research group SemiAnalysis, said in an April article that Huawei now had AI system capabilities that could beat Nvidia. Huawei staff at its WAIC booth declined to comment when asked to introduce the CloudMatrix 384 system. A spokesperson for Huawei did not respond to questions. Huawei has become widely regarded as China's most promising domestic supplier of chips essential for AI development, even though the company faces U.S. export restrictions. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Bloomberg in May that Huawei had been "moving quite fast" and named the CloudMatrix as an example. The CloudMatrix 384 incorporates 384 of Huawei's latest 910C chips and outperforms Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 on some metrics, which uses 72 B200 chips, according to SemiAnalysis. The performance stems from Huawei's system design capabilities, which compensate for weaker individual chip performance through the use of more chips and system-level innovations, SemiAnalysis said. Huawei says the system uses "supernode" architecture that allows the chips to interconnect at super-high speeds and in June, Huawei Cloud CEO Zhang Pingan said the CloudMatrix 384 system was operational on Huawei's cloud platform. (Reporting by Brenda Goh and Liam Mo; Editing by Hugh Lawson)