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Huawei to launch Ascend 960DT AI chip in Q1 2027

By Drooid · Sep 17, 2026, 10:18 PM UTC · How we work

Summary

Huawei Launches AI Chip

Huawei announced it will launch the Ascend 960DT AI chip in Q1 2027, ahead of schedule.
Huawei said the Ascend 960PR inference chip will arrive in Q3 2027.
Huawei’s roadmap includes Ascend 970 in 2028 and Ascend 980 in 2029, each doubling performance.
The UnifiedBus/Peerium architecture aims to link up to one million processors in a single system.
The Ascend 960 SuperPoD can connect 4,096 chips, delivering 8 EFLOPS and 1 PB HBM.

Summary

Huawei Shifts In-House Optics

Huawei says U.S. semiconductor restrictions are prompting its shift to in-house interconnect and optics solutions.
The Atlas 960 SuperPoD uses near-packaged optics to cut energy use while boosting link speed.
Huawei’s Hi-ONE optical system with UnifiedBus can link up to 4,000 processors in a single SuperPoD.
The Atlas 960 promises 2.3-fold training and 2.5-fold inference gains on 10-trillion-parameter AI models.

History

Historical Context

In May 2019, the U.S. Department of Commerce placed Huawei on the Entity List, barring the firm from American semiconductor technology. The restriction cut Huawei’s access to roughly 5 % of the global chip market, slashing its smartphone share from 10 % in 2018 to 5 % by 2020. Today, Huawei’s accelerated rollout of Ascend 960DT AI chips and in-house UnifiedBus optics mirrors that 2019 pivot toward self-reliance after U.S. bans. The move pressures rivals such as Intel, Nvidia, and SMIC to expand domestic interconnect solutions, reshaping the global semiconductor supply chain for the next decade.

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Huawei Launches AI Chip

Huawei announced it will launch the Ascend 960DT AI chip in Q1 2027, ahead of schedule.
Huawei said the Ascend 960PR inference chip will arrive in Q3 2027.
Huawei’s roadmap includes Ascend 970 in 2028 and Ascend 980 in 2029, each doubling performance.
The UnifiedBus/Peerium architecture aims to link up to one million processors in a single system.
The Ascend 960 SuperPoD can connect 4,096 chips, delivering 8 EFLOPS and 1 PB HBM.

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