Huawei Technologies is pushing to break Nvidia’s dominance in the AI chip market by targeting buyers in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
The company has reportedly offered its Ascend 910B processors to prospective clients in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand, aiming to sell several thousand units across the region.
Exact distribution figures per country have not yet been disclosed.
Huawei offered its CloudMatrix 384 AI system
The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand rely heavily on Nvidia’s processors. Just recently, the two Middle East countries agreed to multi-year purchases for more than a million chips from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
According to sources familiar with the matter, part of the agreed-upon chips to the UAE will go to the AI firm G42 while the rest go to US companies building data centres in the country.
In Saudi Arabia, Nvidia and AMD agreed to supply to AI company Humain for its data centre project. Humain is still in the early phases of building its “AI factories”, though it targets using several hundred thousand Nvidia processors in the next five years. The plan’s first phase involves using 18,000 of Nvidia’s GB300 Grace Blackwell processors alongside the InfiniBand network system.
Thailand’s local AI startups depend on Nvidia’s GPUs to train and test models. Though Trump’s plans to restrict chip shipments, if implemented, may force the country to seek alternative manufacturers, including those from China.
According to sources, Huawei is already trying to sway customers in the three nations with remote access to CloudMatrix 384. The CloudMatrix 384 system uses advanced Ascend 910C chips, but supply shortages mean the company is not ready to export them. The tech firm is, however, selling its 910C processors to Chinese companies that cannot get advanced American chips.
Huawei has yet to finalize deals with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand customers
So far, Huawei has not secured contracts with the countries it approached. However, its offers have drawn the attention of US policymakers determined to maintain the nation’s global dominance of AI chips. The Ascend chips are still far less advanced than Nvidia’s offerings, at least by a generation.
Institutions like the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in the UAE have not expressed interest in Huawei’s offers, though Thailand’s stance on them is still uncertain. Recently, Huawei also proposed a sale of about 3,000 Ascend chips to Malaysia, but it’s still unclear where that deal currently stands.
However, according to one source, Saudi Arabia appears receptive to potential acquisitions. Nonetheless, when asked about their discussions with Huawei, the Saudi Data & AI Authority, SDAIA spokesperson commented: “At this stage, we’re not in a position to provide a comment as the matter is outside our current scope.”
Meanwhile, one of the Trump administration officials claimed that Huawei can only produce 200,000 AI chips in 2025, most of which will be sold within China. However, his estimation does not include 2.9 million Ascend 910B chips, which the Chinese firm sourced from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
In June, Commerce Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler warned that the US should not be so complacent despite China’s limited production, since they have global ambitions.
