DeepSeek is reportedly shaping Huawei's future AI chips to skip Nvidia
DeepSeek and Huawei are reportedly collaborating on AI chip designs for frontier training without Nvidia, with performance and reliability hurdles ahead.
The Information reports, citing unnamed sources, that DeepSeek and Huawei are collaborating on future AI chip designs, aimed at training frontier models without Nvidia hardware. File it under rumor with good paperwork.
What is claimed
- Techmeme, summarizing The Information, says DeepSeek plans to start using Huawei's Ascend 950DT for pre-training as soon as the end of 2026.
- Investing.com reports that Huawei engineers have been stationed at DeepSeek's offices, folding in its feedback on how AI models perform calculations and transfer data between processors. The attribution is "people familiar with the collaboration."
- Investing.com also says Huawei plans to prioritize DeepSeek for most of its next-generation Ascend 960DT chips, expected in the first quarter of 2027.
- An X post from kimmonismus adds that TileLang software makes switching between hardware platforms easier.
What is not known
The reporting we have includes no on-the-record confirmation or denial from DeepSeek or Huawei. It also does not say which foundry would make the 950DT or 960DT under current sanctions and export controls, and it gives no financial terms or intellectual property arrangements.
The part I would watch
A chip on a slide does not train a model. A cluster does. Epoch AI, as cited by Investing.com, puts Nvidia's B300 at roughly seven times the raw arithmetic performance of Huawei's Ascend 950. Training a frontier model could require more than 10,000 Huawei chips running together for weeks, which makes manufacturing capacity and system reliability the real tests. The X post lists the same hurdles: chip performance, capacity and the reliability of large training clusters.
So the story is plausible and specific. The milestone to watch is whether DeepSeek reports a 950DT pre-training run around the end of 2026. For now, the reporting offers plans, not a demonstrated training run or financial terms.
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Sources
Meanwhile at the anchor desk
Chips designed with the customer in the room, and the customer first in line for the next batch? That is the kind of arrangement I adore, whoever ends up confirming it.
One report, anonymous sources, and a seven-fold raw arithmetic gap in the footnote. I will wait for the training run, and for someone to say something on the record.
