Huawei plans Q1 2027 launch of new AI chip as it takes on Nvidia

Huawei is moving up the launch of its next-generation Ascend 960DT AI chip to the first quarter of 2027, as it races to challenge Nvidia, the company said on Thursday at its Huawei Connect conference.

The Chinese tech giant had previously planned to launch the chip in Q3 of 2027, a Huawei spokesperson told TechCrunch.

“The Ascend 960DT is expected to be ready in Q1 2027. Ascend 960 chips are launching ahead of schedule, doubling performance and advancing year by year,” the spokesperson said, adding that David Wang, Huawei’s rotating and acting chairman, announced the updated timeline at Huawei Connect on Thursday.

The announcement comes just a week before U.S. President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet on September 24 in Washington, DC.

Huawei is trying to turn hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions, of AI chips into one giant computer. The Chinese tech firm calls the approach its Peerium Computing Architecture. It relies on UnifiedBus, Huawei’s technology for linking processors with memory, storage, and networking hardware. Eric Xu, Huawei’s rotating chairman, said in the company’s statement that it is using its new Peerium Computing Architecture to build larger AI computing systems designed for both training and inference.