Huawei Was About to Beat NVIDIA - Dylan Patel
Dylan Patel argues that Huawei was positioned to surpass NVIDIA in AI chips before being banned from TSMC in 2019. He contends that Huawei's combination of software engineering, networking technology, AI research, and manufacturing capabilities made them uniquely competitive in the AI chip market.
Summary
Dylan Patel presents a compelling analysis of how geopolitical restrictions may have prevented what could have been a major shift in the AI chip industry. He argues that without the 2019 ban preventing Huawei from using TSMC's manufacturing capabilities, the Chinese tech giant would have continued gaining market share and potentially become TSMC's largest customer. Patel points to the timeline of chip releases as evidence of Huawei's competitive position, noting that their Ascend chip was released just two months before Google's TPU and four months ahead of NVIDIA's A100. He characterizes Huawei as potentially the only company with 'all the legs' needed for AI chip dominance, citing their comprehensive capabilities across multiple critical areas. According to Patel, Huawei possessed superior software engineering talent, advanced networking technologies that historically formed their core business, better AI researchers compared to NVIDIA, and crucially, their own fabrication facilities. This combination of vertical integration and technical expertise across hardware, software, and research domains positioned them as a formidable competitor that might have outpaced NVIDIA in AI chip development if not for the trade restrictions.
Key Insights
- Huawei would have likely become TSMC's biggest customer and kept gaining market share if not banned from using TSMC in 2019
- The Huawei Ascend chip was released two months before Google's TPU and four months before NVIDIA's A100
- Huawei would arguably be better than NVIDIA if they had maintained access to TSMC manufacturing
- Huawei is arguably the only company with all necessary capabilities including software engineers, networking technologies, and their own fabs
- Huawei has better AI researchers than NVIDIA and their own fabrication facilities
Topics
Transcript
[0:00] If in 2019, Huawei was not banned from using TSMC, they would have kept gaining share and they'd likely be TSMC's biggest customer. The Huawei Ascend was like two months before the TPU and like 4 months before Nvidia's A100. I think it's very arguable that Huawei, if they had TSMC, would be better than Nvidia. Huawei is arguably the only company in the world that has all the legs, right? Huawei has cracked software engineers. Huawei has cracked networking technologies. That's in fact their biggest business historically, right? But furthermore, beyond Nvidia, they [0:30] actually have better AI researchers. And furthermore, beyond Nvidia, they have their own fabs.
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