Ascend processors are central to Beijing’s strategy of building a self-sufficient AI industry and decreasing reliance on US technology.
Huawei Technologies is evaluating whether to deploy its latest Ascend artificial intelligence chips within its cloud and AI services in Latin America, a senior executive has confirmed, a step that would extend Chinese-designed hardware further into a region long pursued by US suppliers.
Mark Chen, president of Huawei Cloud Latin America, provided the confirmation in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post following his presentation at the Rio Web Summit, the technology and innovation conference hosted by the Brazilian city this week.
Chen did not provide a timeframe, noting that Huawei’s newest chip generation, the Ascend 950 series, is “still in the early stages” of domestic deployment.
Huawei commercially launched the first chip in that series, the 950PR, in China in March, unveiling it alongside its Atlas 350 computing cluster, a collection of chips wired to operate as a single unit.
Chinese AI companies have since adopted it, with Alibaba and ByteDance among the buyers and DeepSeek operating its latest models on the platform.
Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.