Huawei announced a 2027 launch for new AI chips designed to compete with Nvidia amid US export controls.

Huawei Technologies will launch two new artificial-intelligence semiconductors in 2027, rotating chairman David Wang announced on Thursday, as the Chinese tech giant builds up its AI computing business and seeks to challenge U.S. chipmaker Nvidia.

The company plans to launch the 960DT in the first quarter of 2027 and the Ascend 960PR in the third quarter. Both represent steps toward Huawei's broader effort to compete in AI hardware and software.

A critical challenge for building advanced AI systems is connecting very large numbers of chips so they work together as a single, more powerful computing system. Most advanced AI applications require more processing power than any single chip can provide.

To address this, Huawei has developed UnifiedBus technology, which Wang said would be a key component in the company's next generation of large AI systems. The technology is designed to help chips share information and work together more efficiently. Huawei has developed 11 semiconductors based on UnifiedBus for use in its large systems. The company's largest linked systems, called superclusters, can support up to 1 million AI processors.

Huawei has shipped more than 1,000 smaller linked systems, known as supernodes, to more than 370 customers. A supernode is a system that brings together many AI chips to tackle the same task, though Wang did not disclose how many chips could be connected within a single supernode or name specific customers.

The United States and China are competing to develop the chips, data centers, and software that underpin artificial intelligence. Washington has imposed export controls restricting China's access to certain advanced computing chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment, while Chinese companies have placed greater emphasis on building domestic alternatives.

For Chinese technology companies unable to freely purchase the most advanced foreign chips, connecting larger numbers of locally available chips in one system offers a path to greater computing power—but only if those chips can exchange information quickly enough. U.S. export controls have inadvertently helped Huawei emerge as a prominent Chinese supplier of AI chips.

Still, Huawei faces a well-established market leader in Nvidia, whose hardware and software tools are widely used by developers around the world. Building a strong developer base will be important to Huawei's efforts to make its hardware easier to adopt. Wang noted that Huawei's AI chip ecosystem currently has 5,270 monthly active developers.