Can Huawei out-Nvidia Nvidia?

Welcome to AI Collision 💥,

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• 910A, B, C, D, E…
• War profiteering
• AI energy fears

If that’s enough to get the chips flying, read on…

AI Collision 💥

Trump is reportedly going “soft” on China. Meaning those astronomical tariffs levelled at his superpower nemesis might be, are probably, coming down soon. Likely to the kind of levels that other countries add to Chinese goods.

Interestingly it’s said that Temu is adding over 300% to the cost of its products heading into the US. Looks like that massage gun you always wanted is going to cost $3 then…

Anyway, the real story behind the tariffs is about China realising they cannot rely on America to provide a reliable supply of AI chips and supplies. Theyu do need to go it alone, as the Americans are doing for themselves.

And it’s causing a genuine arms race between AI chip companies. And right in China’s line of site is Nvidia.

The gun being pointed, is from Huawei.

On March 25 I wrote to you about “Chinese Chips”,

The latest development in China’s push for chip manufacturing dominance comes as Jack Ma (founder of Alibaba and affiliate Ant Group) has been commenting on Ant’s AI-based future and its latest breakthrough in training AI and reducing the cost of the chips needed by around 20%.

I went on to say,

Ant said it could achieve the same results as it would with H800 chips from Nvidia (the scaled-back chips made for the Chinese market to satisfy export controls).

In short, this is a major step forward for China being wholly self-sufficient for its entire AI chip supply chain.

What this sounds like is that the AI wars (so to speak) are more about the domestic security of the AI chip supply chain. Like the domestic security of energy and domestic security of borders, it’s just another reason for major competing nations to onshore whatever they can to remain competitive in the fast-moving AI space.

And then in a yet to be published article I wrote on April 23 for Southbank Research (you’re getting the real inside scoop here) I said,

Huawei is preparing for the mass shipment of its latest AI chip, the Ascend 910C. This is said to be two 910B’s strapped together, but importantly at the level of (or surpassing) the capabilities of Nvidia’s renowned H100 chips.

According to a report on Reuters, Huawei’s new chip is already being supplied in substantial quantities to Chinese cloud giants like Baidu and Tencent and will be the primary chip used by Chinese AI companies.

The timing isn’t coincidental. US export controls have left Chinese firms scrambling for alternatives to Nvidia’s advanced GPUs, particularly the H100 and A100. With the Ascend 910C, Huawei is stepping into that void, providing a domestically controlled and performance capable chip for AI development.

Well, that was last week.

Over the weekend from news site, AlJazeera,

China’s Huawei Technologies is preparing to test its newest and most powerful artificial intelligence (AI) processor, as it hopes to replace some higher-end products of US chip giant Nvidia, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

Huawei has approached some Chinese tech companies about testing the technical feasibility of the new chip, called the Ascend 910D, the United States newspaper reported Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

910C today, 910D tomorrow.

910E next week?

Point is China is going big on their move to be fully independent from America for their AI chips supply. This is going to be disruptive to America to some chips stocks on the NASDAQ, but ultimately it’s going to force countries to pick an AI-geopolitical side.

Volatility is rife in the AI-stock market now, as this story develops, that’s going to get wilder, but ultimately create more opportunity.

If you ask me, if I had to pick a side and a winner long term on AI chips between China and America…

I’m betting on the Americans.

How to Become a Trade War Profiteer

Lockheed Martin. BAE Systems. Rolls Royce. These huge business empires were each born out of conflict.  But now, with an economic conflict dominating headlines… Trade War Profiteers are emerging left, right and centre.

Former advisor to President Regan Jim Rickards has identified which companies he believes could soar the furthest.

Capital at risk. Forecasts are not a reliable indicator of future results.

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

Boom 📈

• Vicarious Surgical (NASDAQ:RBOT) up 57%
• BigBear.ai (NYSE:BBAI) up 39%
• Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR) up 20%

Bust 📉

• JD.com (NASDAQ;JD) down 6%
• IBM (NYSE:IBM) down 3%
• Kainos Group (LSE:KNS) down 0.3%

From the hive mind 🧠

• Xpeng is quite the fascinting company. From flying cars (yes, they say a flying car in the next year) to high tech EVs, this “Tesla of China” is certainly making waves. And when it comes to AI, they’re also a leader in the car market for pushing out AI tech to make their cars smarter, and ultimately safer.
• He’s not wrong. I can vouch for it. We used to employ research assistants to help sift through huge volumes of data in our work. Now when I need to pull up company financials in a heartbeat, or help myself understand complex technicaly papers and concepts outside my experience and understanding, I use my AI assistant. For $20 a month, it’s easliy the best value for money I can think of.
• Recently a post went viral questioning the energy usage of people using “please” and “thankyou” when talking with AI. The idea itself is utterly ridiculous, but it’s a headline the mainstream latched on to terrified of the energy threat AI poses. While AI will need, does need a lot of energy, it’s not going to cause rolling blackouts. So these kinds of stories while interesting, are really a good sign this is a massively disruptive technology trend for the long term.

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️

On Wednesday I asked if “Radical Abundance” was a possiblity in our lifetime. That AI could usher in a new era where we’d be able to be so productive, efficient and able to achieve on a scale never before seen, that we’d never run out of anything.

Energy is one thing that comes to mind, and the ability to cure the previously uncurable disease and illness another. Solve these two things, and maybe, just maybe we head to this abundanct future.

But is it something you believe is possible?

Here are the results:

Overall, it’s an optimistic outcome, achieveable, but the timeframe is certainly up in the air. A fair result. I like your outlook!

And on Friday with the news that a new bitcoin company from Softbank, Bitfinex and Tether would be merging with a SPAC from Cantor Fitzgerald, and that a autonomous trucking robotics company, Kodiak Robotics, would also be hitting the market soon via SPAC I asked if SPAC mania was back and if we’d learned anything from 2021?

Here are the results.

I think an appropriate outcome considering how SPACs popped in 2021, and then were decimated in 2021. Ableit some have recovered and gone on to profit for investors more recently, and some that listed via SPAC in 2024 (Oklo comes to mind) had huge success.

I think more SPACs will be used in 2025. And there will be some big, fast profits on the table for investors. The hype train will be ready to ride again, but it’s certainly a case of buyer beware!

Weirdest AI image of the day

A comic where Dr. Chicken invents Facebook and installs it in all 1975 model cars.

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision