In 2026, China's AI chip market landscape has shifted from "NVIDIA unipolar dominance" to "overseas vendors leading, domestic multi-route catch-up." According to industry research, China's overall AI accelerator market was ~4M units in 2025, of which 1.65M were domestic, with share first breaking 40%; as products iterate and fabs follow up, the localization rate is expected to rise to 60%-70% by 2027. This article focuses on the latest H2 2026 progress of Huawei Ascend, Cambricon, and Moore Threads — the domestic "Big Three."

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1. Huawei Ascend: 950 Capacity Fully Booked, 960 Roadmap Unveiled​

Ascend's core advantage is "architecture + full-stack ecosystem synergy," with ~800K units shipped in 2025, capturing 50% of the total domestic vendor share. The product iteration cadence is clear:

Time	Product	Note
2025 Q1	Ascend 910C	Main transitional model
2026 Q1	Ascend 950PR	Inference flagship
2026 Q4 (planned)	Ascend 950DT	Training flagship, drives domestic HBM iteration
2027-2028	Ascend 960 / 970	Roadmap products

950 series capacity has entered a "fully booked" state: 950PR entered mass production in April 2026; June monthly capacity jumped to 500K-600K units (nearly 10x MoM), with a full-year target of 1.2M units at 100% certainty; ByteDance locked in 350K units for $5.6B, while Tencent / Alibaba / Baidu combined locked in 400K units.

Ascend 960 roadmap specs (per roadmap disclosure):

Metric	Ascend 960
Architecture	Ascend 6th gen (Da Vinci v6)
FP8 compute	~4 PFLOPS
Memory	288GB
Memory bandwidth	9.6 TB/s
Super-node	Atlas 960 SuperPoD, 15,488 cards, Lingqu optical-electrical converged bus
Debut	2027 Q4 (roadmap)

The previous-gen Ascend 384 super-node has cumulatively shipped over 750 sets, deployed across 20+ industries including internet, operators, finance, education, and healthcare — Huawei calls it "the only domestic super-node that has trained a SOTA model."

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2. Cambricon MLU690: H2 Mass Production, Entering ByteDance Bidding Window​

Cambricon is the core domestic compute leader in the absence of an Ascend IPO, with the technology gap continuously narrowing:

• Siyuan 590 (7nm): Performance equivalent to 80% of A100, already supports DeepSeek, continuously adapting to mainstream large models like Qwen 3 and GLM
• Siyuan 690 series: Will enter mass production in H2 2026, expected to achieve order scale-up during ByteDance's H2 bidding window
• Revenue certainty: Equity incentive targets show >100% revenue growth for the next 3 years: 2026 revenue target 13.5B RMB, 2027 27B RMB, 2028 60B RMB

Cambricon fully benefits from the industry dividend of "domestic CSP capex + full adaptation of domestic large models and domestic chips," making it the most direct elasticity play on rising localization rate.

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3. Moore Threads MTT S5000: Full-Function GPU + Ecosystem Breakthrough​

Moore Threads takes a differentiated "full-function GPU" route, with the flagship MTT S5000 based on the 4th-gen "Pinghu" MUSA architecture:

Metric	MTT S5000
Dense AI compute	1000 TFLOPS
Memory	80GB
Memory bandwidth	1.6 TB/s
Inter-card interconnect	784 GB/s
Precision	FP8 to FP64 full precision (training + inference)
Security	First batch to pass national "Safe and Reliable Evaluation" (Level I)

Its engineering capability is verified: the Kuae (KUAE) intelligent computing cluster based on S5000 achieves 95% training linear scaling efficiency, with compute efficiency loss within 5% at ten-thousand-card scale; supports checkpoint-resume training with effective training time ratio >90%; and has trained a MoE-236B base model with >25 trillion tokens of corpus from scratch.

The ecosystem is Moore Threads' deepest moat: MUSA has achieved 100% core math library compatibility, 3000+ PyTorch operator compatibility, covers 55 categories of core AI operators, has official vLLM and SGLang support, Day-0 adaptation of mainstream models, and 800K+ developers. Its PD heterogeneous-disaggregation solution achieves equivalent replacement of international high-end GPUs at a 2:1 ratio with S5000, significantly reducing inference cost.

The 5th-gen "Huagang" architecture (released 2025-12) supports FP4 to FP64 full precision, with 50% higher compute density and 10x better energy efficiency than the previous gen, supporting 100K+ card clusters; cumulative R&D investment in the "Huashan" (train-infer integrated) and "Lushan" (graphics rendering) new chips based on this architecture exceeds 900M RMB.

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4. Software Ecosystem Decides: Day-0 Adaptation Becomes Routine​

Beyond hardware, software ecosystem realization is the watershed for domestic compute in 2026:

• Huawei's CANN heterogeneous computing architecture and MindSeries suite are fully open-sourced, with the community incubating 67 projects, 12.44M+ lines of code, and 3,500+ monthly active developers
• The "release-and-adapt" closed loop between domestic large models and domestic chips has basically formed: Tencent Hunyuan T3 (295B), DeepSeek-V4, and GLM-5.2 all completed Day-0 adaptation
• 2026 is regarded as the "first year of domestic super-nodes"; Huatai Securities estimates China's super-node architecture market will reach 341.4B RMB by 2028, with a 2026-2028 CAGR of 194%

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5. Industry Judgment: From "Can It Be Built" to "Can It Be Used Well"​

The domestic Big Three are converging along three paths:

1. Huawei: Locks government/enterprise and internet big customers with super-node system-level capability + full-stack software
2. Cambricon: Impacts the revenue inflection point by narrowing the training-side gap + scaling up via big-customer bidding
3. Moore Threads: Covers cloud-edge-end full scenarios with full-function GPU generality + mature CUDA-compatible ecosystem

The common shortcoming of all three remains advanced process and HBM supply — precisely the core link of overseas controls. But as domestic HBM iterates and fabs follow up, a realistic path to 60%-70% localization by 2027 exists.

Related Links​

• Huawei Ascend 960 spec page
• Huawei Ascend 950DT spec page
• Cambricon MLU690 spec page
• Moore Threads MTT S5000 spec page

References​

• Domestic AI Chip Industry View Update - Robo Datayes
• Moore Threads, Two Positives in One Day - Eastmoney
• Moore Threads × SiliconFlow: PD Disaggregation Heterogeneous Compute Co-location Whitepaper - EE Focus
• After Approaching Break-even, Moore Threads Faces Hong Kong "Big Exam" Again - Top News

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This article is compiled from public industry research, broker views, and corporate announcements as of August 2026. Some shipment and market-share figures are third-party estimates, not officially confirmed data.

For the past three years, the entire AI hardware story was "training": who had the most H100s, who could connect a hundred thousand GPUs into a cluster. That race is essentially settled — NVIDIA won. But the next battlefield, "inference," is being fought under completely different rules: the measure is no longer peak FLOPS, but cost-per-token, latency, and power. In 2026, inference chips overtake training in scale for the first time, becoming the main battlefield of AI accelerators.

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1. Inference Becomes the Main Battlefield: 80%–90% of Compute Spent on Inference​

Training a large model costs hundreds of millions of dollars — once. But once the model goes live, it must answer billions of queries day after day. A popular consumer model may need tens of thousands of accelerators running 7×24 to keep up with demand. Therefore:

• Inference accounts for roughly 80%–90% of a model's lifecycle compute;
• Inference chips will make up about 60%–70% of the ~$400B AI accelerator market in 2026, up from only ~40% in 2023;
• Inference chip growth (estimated +52.7% YoY) significantly outpaces training chips (+28.4%); the share of inference-side compute demand exceeded training-side for the first time in 2026, reaching 54% (~$1010B).

The economics of inference are straightforward: training cost is amortized to near-zero, while inference cost becomes the entire bill. Every 1% cut in inference cost flows directly to profit — for a company whose inference traffic reaches hyperscale like OpenAI, the half of the bill is a number followed by a string of zeros.

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2. Market Size: Structural Growth Inflection Point Has Arrived​

Market	2026 Size	Growth	Notes
Global dedicated inference chips	$412.7B	+38.4%	14.2 pct higher growth than training chips
China dedicated inference chips	$118.6B (28.7% of global)	+44.1%	Strongest single market in APAC by growth
Global AI training/inference chips (incl. GPU/NPU)	exceeds $1850B	+40.2%	GPU ~62%

China's domestic substitution is accelerating, with domestic inference chips reaching 34.6% of shipments, up 9.8 pct from 2025.

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3. Technology-Axis Share Inverts: GPU Slows, ASIC Soars​

Axis	2026 Shipment Share	Trend
GPU	52.6%	Still leads, but growth slows to 22.7%
ASIC custom chips	41.3%	Up sharply from 17.8% in 2022
FPGA	Stable	Specific low-latency scenarios

Thanks to ecosystem maturity, GPU remains the mainstay, but NPU/ASIC already holds a 1.8× advantage over same-generation GPUs in energy efficiency, driving rapid adoption at the edge and on-device. Shipments of inference-optimized ASICs are expected to reach 11.5 million units, with unit cost about 35% lower than GPUs.

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4. Five Schools Clash​

School	Representative Products	Core Strength	Use Cases
General-purpose GPU	NVIDIA Rubin / B200 / H200	Mature ecosystem, train+infer unified	Frontier training + highly interactive inference
LPU (Language Processing Unit)	Groq LPU	Ultra-low latency, deterministic throughput	Real-time dialogue, high-concurrency inference
TPU (inference-specific)	Google TPU 8i (Zebrafish)	288GB HBM, 384MB on-chip SRAM, 19.2 Tb/s ICI	Google's scaled inference
Custom ASIC	OpenAI Jalapeno, Microsoft Maia 200, Meta MTIA	Strip generality tax for own models, ~50% lower cost/token	Hyperscaler's own workloads
Air-cooled inference card	Intel Crescent Island	350W air-cooled, 480GB LPDDR5X, tokens/watt	Cost-sensitive mid/long-tail inference

OpenAI's Jalapeno, co-developed with Broadcom, aims to cut inference token cost by roughly 50% versus a general-purpose GPU stack — the fifth member to join the "custom inference chip club" (after Google TPU, Amazon Inferentia/Trainium, Microsoft Maia, and Meta MTIA).

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5. Core Metric Shifts: cost-per-token and tokens/watt​

The fundamental difference between the inference race and the training race is the low switching cost:

• Training requires a 100k-GPU cluster + NVLink + CUDA, with extremely high migration cost;
• Inference is "embarrassingly parallel" at the endpoint level — no million-GPU cluster needed; a node that produces tokens fast and cheaply suffices, and is replaceable per endpoint.

This means NVIDIA's three moats (fastest silicon, NVLink scale-out, CUDA) are no longer absolute on the inference side. When the largest AI buyer (OpenAI) starts treating GPUs as "one of the options," the GPU premium begins to erode — pricing power relies on scarcity, and custom chips attack that scarcity from two directions at once: both reducing merchant-chip demand and giving buyers a credible external negotiation option.

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6. Edge and On-Device Explosion: Long-Tail Signal​

Demand shows significant long-tail and fragmentation:

Scenario	2026 Demand Size	Growth
Cloud inference	$198.2B (48%)	+24.5% (slowing)
Edge inference	$126.5B (30.7%)	+52.3%
On-device inference	$88.0B (21.3%)	+68.9%
Autonomous-driving inference	$67.3B	+58.2%
Industrial QA / robotics inference	$42.1B	+63.7%

The latency sensitivity and power constraints of inference workloads are reshaping chip architecture design priorities — which also explains why "air-cooled, large-memory" solutions like Crescent Island can find a niche.

Related Links​

• Hot Chips 2026 Full Recap
• Hyperscaler Custom Silicon Wave 2026
• NVIDIA Rubin Spec Page
• Intel Crescent Island Spec Page

References​

• Inference Chips vs Training Chips - ValueAdd VC
• Global and China Dedicated Inference Chip Industry In-Depth Research Report (2026) - IIM
• 2026 Global AI Training/Inference Chip Market and Trend Report - IIM
• Custom AI inference silicon: why OpenAI built Jalapeno - nexi.fund

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This article is compiled from publicly available 2026 market research, brokerage reports, and industry analysis. Market sizes and shares are third-party estimates with inconsistent methodologies and are for reference only.

The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) was held July 17-20, 2026 at the Shanghai World Expo Center, themed "Intelligent Partners, Creating the Future Together." Over 1,100 companies showcased 3,000+ exhibits, with 300+ products debuting globally. For the compute-card industry, this concentrated review of domestic compute sent a clear signal: the competitive main line is shifting from "single-chip peak compute" to "SuperNode system-level effective compute."

1. Huawei Atlas 950 SuperPoD: live debut, wins SAIL grand award​

Huawei's Atlas 950 SuperPoD live hardware made its first public appearance at WAIC 2026, on-site carrying 16 compute cabinets with 1,024 Ascend cards total. With three system-level innovations — "ultra-wide bandwidth, ultra-low latency, unified memory addressing" — it stood out from hundreds of domestic and international entries to win the conference's top honor, the SAIL (Super AI Leader) Award.

Core parameters (confirmed on-site at WAIC)​

Metric	Atlas 950 SuperPoD
Exhibited scale	16 compute cabinets / 1,024 Ascend cards
Max interconnect scale	8,192 Ascend NPU cards fully interconnected (full config)
Interconnect protocol	Huawei in-house "Lingqu" (UnifiedBus) 2.0
Total compute	1 EFLOPS FP8 / 2 EFLOPS FP4 (1,024 cards); full 8,192-card ~8 EFLOPS FP8
Unified memory	256 TB globally unified memory address space
Interconnect latency	3 μs ultra-low RTT; TB-level NPU interconnect bandwidth
Full config	128 compute cabinets + 32 interconnect cabinets = 160 cabinets, ~1000㎡, carrying 8,192 Ascend 950DT
Launch	Full config planned for Q4 2026
Cooling	Fully liquid-cooled blind-plug architecture

Huawei disclosed for the first time: the previous-gen Ascend 384 SuperNode has cumulatively shipped 750+ units commercially, deployed across 20+ industries including internet, operators, finance, education, healthcare, transportation, and manufacturing, calling it "the only domestic SuperNode that has trained SOTA models."

2. Software ecosystem: CANN fully open-sourced, developers at scale​

Beyond hardware, Huawei highlighted open-source software ecosystem progress:

• CANN heterogeneous compute architecture and MindSeries base software suite were fully open-sourced end of 2025;
• The CANN open-source community has incubated 67 projects, 12.44M+ lines of code, with 3,500+ monthly active developers;
• Huawei has co-developed 7,000+ solutions with 3,000+ industry partners, serving 2,000+ core government/enterprise customers;
• WAIC showcased 60+ real business scenarios, 20+ benchmark cases, covering the full chain from technology breakthrough to scaled commercial deployment.

3. Domestic chips' Day-0 adaptation becomes routine​

On July 6, 2026, Tencent released the MoE model Hunyuan T3 (295B parameters, 256K context); domestic chips rapidly completed Day-0 adaptation:

Vendor	Chip	Adaptation status
Moore Threads	MTT S5000	Completed rapid Hunyuan T3 adaptation (previously adapted DeepSeek-V4, GLM-5.2)
MetaX	Xiyun C series	In-house MXMACA stack first to full-chain Day-0 adaptation, zero-code deployment

Moore Threads also showcased the MTT C256 SuperNode (first-of-its-kind single-layer Scale-up 256-card full interconnect, sub-microsecond latency) and three AI-factory solutions — "model training factory / token production factory / agent production factory."

4. More domestic compute debut highlights​

Vendor / product	Highlight
Orient AlphaChip DF1000	World's first "software-defined + near-memory computing" 3D chip, interconnect pitch compressed to sub-micron
ZhongHao XinYing "Xuyu"	Fully in-house next-gen TPU-architecture AI-specific chip, with Taize 2.0 server
Enflame × Iluvatar	Domestic high-performance Matrix SuperNode based on OEX+dOCS architecture, shortlisted for the conference "Excellent AI Leader Award"
Rongming Microelectronics	Advancing next-gen VPU, evolving from video processing to "visual-agent compute base"

The domestic AI chip lineup also included Moore Threads, MetaX, Enflame, Houmo, Cixiong, Suaneng, SemiDrive, Phytium, Aixin, Iluvatar, and others.

Industry interpretation: from "can it be built" to "is it used well"​

WAIC 2026 reflects a fundamental shift in the competitive stage of domestic AI chips:

1. SuperNode becomes the main battlefield: beyond single-chip performance, system-level capabilities — "inter-chip interconnect + cluster scale + cooling" — become the breakthrough key. Huawei Lingqu and Enflame/Iluvatar OEX are both pushing here. Huatai Securities defines 2026 as the "first year of domestic SuperNodes," estimating China's SuperNode architecture market could reach ¥341.4B by 2028, with 2026-2028 CAGR of 194%.
2. Software ecosystem delivers: Day-0 adaptation has gone from slogan to routine; the "launch-and-adapt" closed loop between domestic large models (DeepSeek-V4, GLM-5.2, Hunyuan T3) and domestic chips is essentially formed.
3. Demand-side endorsement: China Mobile earlier released its 2026-2027 AI SuperNode centralized procurement announcement — about 6,208 cards, over ¥2B — accelerating domestic SuperNode scaled commercialization.

Related links​

• Huawei Ascend 950DT specs
• Huawei Ascend 950PR specs
• Moore Threads MTT S5000 specs

References​

• Ascend 950 SuperNode live at WAIC 2026, wins SAIL top award - Global Times
• 2026 WAIC compute competition enters "system-level" battlefield, Ascend 950 SuperNode debuts - Tencent News
• Huawei unveils advanced Atlas 950 SuperPoD - China Daily
• Huawei Ascend 950 wins WAIC 2026 SAIL top honor - Huxiu
• Compute heavyweights at WAIC: Huawei Ascend 950 SuperNode live - 21st Century Business Herald

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This article is compiled from WAIC 2026 (July 17-20) on-site and official disclosures, and will continuously track the 950 SuperNode Q4 launch.

AMD has confirmed its flagship AI event Advancing AI 2026 will be held July 22-23, 2026 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, with the keynote on July 23 hosted by Chair and CEO Lisa Su. The event will complete the Instinct MI400 series availability timeline, pricing, and independent benchmark data.

1. Instinct MI400 family: three CDNA 5 accelerators​

AMD fully revealed the MI400 matrix at CES 2026; all three accelerators use CDNA 5 architecture, TSMC 2nm process, differentiated by precision and scenario:

Model	Positioning	Key specs
MI455X (flagship)	Large-scale train/inference (rack-scale)	320B transistors, 12 chiplets, 432 GB HBM4 (12×36GB), 19.6 TB/s, FP4 40 PFLOPS / FP8 20 PFLOPS
MI440X (enterprise)	Local enterprise AI (8-card node)	Low-precision AI (FP4/FP8/BF16), direct MI300/MI350 replacement, compatible with existing power/cooling
MI430X (HPC/sovereign AI)	High-precision scientific computing + AI	Full FP32/FP64, already deployed at Oak Ridge Discovery and France's first exascale Alice Recoque

MI455X and MI440X target low-precision AI (FP4/FP8/BF16); MI430X fills traditional HPC high-precision needs — improving energy efficiency and cost-performance by "trimming execution units by precision." All three support UALink (among the first accelerators compatible with the standard) and Infinity Fabric die-to-die interconnect; rack scaling uses Ultra Ethernet.

Lisa Su confirmed on the Q1 2026 earnings call: MI455X samples have been sent to core customers, with demand "exceeding the company's internal expectations for 2027."

2. Helios rack: 3 exaFLOPS per cabinet​

AMD enters the hyperscale market with the Helios rack-scale platform:

Metric	Helios rack
Accelerators	72 × MI455X
Aggregate HBM4	31 TB
Total memory bandwidth	1.4 PB/s
Per-cabinet compute	Up to 3 AI exaFLOPS (Q3 delivery target)
Target customers	Hyperscale train/inference clusters

Helios uses AMD's in-house Zen 6 EPYC Venice CPU (18 per rack) + Pensando Vulcano 800G NIC, integrated via the open ROCm software stack; AMD also plans a double-width 128-card Helios variant, pushing per-cabinet compute to the 3 AI exaFLOPS ceiling. Further out, the MI500 series (CDNA 6, 2nm, HBM4E) is planned for 2027, with official claims of up to 1000× AI performance vs MI300X.

3. 12GW deal: OpenAI + Meta dual endorsement​

AMD holds two historic-scale compute agreements totaling about 12 GW, with lifetime potential revenue possibly reaching $100B:

Customer	Scale	First deployment	Structure
OpenAI	6 GW (multi-gen products)	First 1 GW, H2 2026 on MI450	"compute-for-upside": up to 160M warrants, vesting by milestone and stock-price targets
Meta	6 GW	Custom MI450 chips, from H2 2026	Deployed in next-gen data centers

Financial expectations​

Metric	2026 forecast
MI400 series revenue	~$7.2B (about 25% of data-center sales)
Data-center GPU revenue	~$15B (up +114% YoY)
Total data-center revenue	Possibly $28.7B (up +73% YoY)

⚠️ Execution risk: AMD has flagged that MI450's Q3 mass production will weigh on gross margin (new products below company average); advanced process and advanced packaging (TSMC CoWoS) capacity remain the main constraint.

Industry interpretation​

1. CUDA moat being pried open: when companies building the world's largest training clusters — Meta, OpenAI — bet on AMD silicon, AMD's long-standing 5-7% GPU share ceiling is being broken.
2. Memory advantage as differentiation: 432 GB HBM4 / 19.6 TB/s vs NVIDIA Rubin's 288 GB offers capacity advantage, critical for large-model inference (KV Cache-constrained scenarios).
3. Tight benchmarking pace: MI450 and NVIDIA Vera Rubin both ramp in H2 2026, with the two giants competing head-on over HBM4 supply and CoWoS capacity.

Related links​

• AMD Instinct MI455X specs
• AMD Instinct MI400 specs
• AMD Instinct MI350 specs

References​

• AMD sets July date to detail its Instinct MI400 AI accelerators - IT Magazine
• Lisa Su: AMD has sent MI450 GPU samples to core customers - AGI.Space
• AMD and OpenAI announce strategic partnership to deploy 6GW AMD GPU - AMD press release
• AMD's 12-Gigawatt AI Contract Haul - StocksToday

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This article was written on the eve of Advancing AI 2026 (July 22-23, opening tomorrow); the keynote is July 23 hosted by Lisa Su, where MI400's final availability, pricing, and independent benchmarks will be revealed — we will update in sync.

From December 2025 to July 2026 — just half a year — at least 6 AI chip companies have listed or are about to list on capital markets. Together with already-listed Cambricon, Hygon, and Iluvatar, the domestic GPU corps' total market cap is approaching ¥2 trillion. This marks the critical climb from domestic GPUs being "usable" to "useful."

1. The "Four Little Dragons" assemble on capital markets​

Company	Listing status	Raise / issue price	Sponsor
Moore Threads	Listed (STAR Market sh688795, 2025-12-05)	Issue price ¥114.28, raised ¥8B	CITIC Securities
MetaX	IPO accepted (2026-06-30)	¥3.904B (total investment ¥5B)	Huatai United
Enflame	Passed review (2026-06-15)	¥6B	—
Biren	HKEX / sprinting	—	—

Already-listed camp: Cambricon (sh688256, STAR Market 2020-07-20), Hygon, Iluvatar (HKEX). Moore Threads turned a book profit of ¥29.35M in Q1; MetaX narrowed losses 57.7% and gave a 2026 breakeven timeline.

2. Moore Threads MTT S5000: benchmarking against H100​

Moore Threads announced its flagship AI train+inference GPU MTT S5000 successfully completed full-pipeline adaptation validation of Zhipu's new-generation large model GLM-5 — measured performance "breaks the domestic compute ceiling":

Metric	MTT S5000
Architecture	4th-gen "Pinghu" architecture
FP8 compute	1 PFLOPS (1,000 TFLOPS)
Memory bandwidth	1.6 TB/s
Positioning	Full-function train+inference GPU, benchmarks against NVIDIA H100
Production	Mass-produced; clusters online supporting trillion-parameter training

Deployment validation: jointly completed full-pipeline training of embodied-brain model RoboBrain 2.5 with BAAI; partnered with SiliconFlow for high-performance DeepSeek-V3 inference, single-card speed near international top products. IPO funds go to three directions: next-gen AI train+inference chip, next-gen graphics chip, next-gen AI SoC chip.

WAIC 2026 new progress: Moore Threads showcased the MTT C256 SuperNode (first-of-its-kind single-layer Scale-up 256-card full interconnect, sub-microsecond latency) and three AI-factory solutions — "model training factory / token production factory / agent production factory"; the company pre-announced H1 2026 revenue of ¥1.65B-1.75B, up 135%-149% YoY.

3. Cambricon: dual flagships MLU590/690​

Chip	Process	Compute	Memory	Customer / status
MLU590 (思元590)	7nm Chiplet	INT8 512 TOPS / FP16 345 TFLOPS	96 GB HBM2e	ByteDance inference mainstay, ~80% of A100 overall, mass shipments early 2026
MLU690 (思元690)	5nm-class (SMIC N+2)	FP16 700+ TFLOPS / INT8 2800+ TOPS	196 GB HBM3 (3.35 TB/s)	Dual-die packaging, MLU-Link 890 Gbps; ~70% of H100 (80-90% pure inference); ByteDance largest customer, mass production early 2026

Cambricon is the only domestic AI chip vendor with a "unified edge-cloud architecture" — one MLU instruction set spans 思元 220 (edge) → 370 (border) → 590/690 (cloud), with one NeuWare toolchain across compute tiers.

Capital and performance double explosion: Cambricon's total market cap exceeded ¥1 trillion on June 30, 2026, becoming the STAR Market's first "trillion-yuan stock," up 75%+ YTD. On performance, Q1 2026 revenue ¥2.885B (+160% YoY), deducted net profit ¥934M; full-year 2025 revenue ¥6.497B (+453% YoY), net profit attributable to parent ¥2.059B, ending long-term losses. ByteDance has cumulatively deployed over 100k 思元 590/690, its largest customer.

4. DeepSeek-V4 effect: changing the expectation coordinate system​

On April 24, 2026, DeepSeek released the trillion-parameter flagship DeepSeek-V4. Unlike a year earlier when V3's launch sparked debate over "can domestic chips even run large models," this time multiple domestic chips — Huawei Ascend, Cambricon, Hygon, MetaX, Moore Threads, Kunlun, T-Head, Iluvatar — completed adaptation on launch day.

The evaluation coordinate system is shifting: from "what percentage of NVIDIA's same-generation product performance" to "can it carry the real workloads of top-tier large models."

Industry interpretation​

1. Capital ammunition in place: dense IPOs provide ample funding for domestic GPU R&D iteration and capacity expansion, moving from "technology breakthrough" to "commercial virtuous cycle."
2. Train+inference becomes the mainstream route: Moore Threads takes the full-function GPU route (graphics+AI+general compute), differentiating from Huawei Ascend's "AI-focused."
3. Software ecosystem is the decider: Day-0 adaptation and the maturity of unified software stacks (MUSA / NeuWare / MXMACA) are replacing raw peak compute as the core yardstick of domestic GPU "usability."

Related links​

• Moore Threads MTT S5000 specs
• Cambricon MLU590 (思元590) specs
• Cambricon MLU690 (思元690) specs

References​

• Moore Threads flagship GPU benchmarked against NVIDIA H100 - Anue
• GPU Four Little Dragons take the stage, Cambricon no longer alone - Sina Finance
• GPU industry status and development trends (2026) - 10jqka
• 2026 domestic AI compute tracker (Huawei Ascend, Cambricon, Moore Threads)

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This article continuously tracks the domestic GPU listing process and product iteration.

The Ascend 950 series (950PR inference / 950DT training) has become the core supply of domestic AI compute. Per multiple brokerages and industry research, 950 series capacity is 100% booked with scarce spot supply; the full-year 1.2M-unit target is "100% certain," with expectations of an upward revision to 1.5M. This article summarizes capacity and order data as of July 2026.

1. Capacity pace: ~10× MoM jump in June​

Time	950PR monthly capacity	Notes
May 2026	50k-60k units	Near full production
June 2026	500k-600k units	~10× MoM; SMIC, Hua Hong tier-1 suppliers on overtime
Q3 2026 (est.)	700k-800k units	Per month
Full-year 2026 target	1.2M units	Upward revision to 1.5M expected

Supply chain delivery is tight: high-speed backplanes and liquid-cooling connectors' lead time stretched from 2 weeks to 6-8 weeks; orders are booked into 2027.

2. Order structure: top cloud providers + operators + overseas​

Customer	Locked volume	Amount / Notes
ByteDance	350k 950PR	$5.6B, concentrated delivery from Q3 2026
Tencent / Alibaba / Baidu	~250k 950PR + 150k 950DT	Combined ~400k units
Three major operators	200k+ units	Centralized procurement, for intelligent compute centers and AI private networks
Overseas	South Korea 2,000 units, Malaysia 3,000 servers, Russia ten-thousand-card cluster	From pilot to commercial

3. Shipment forecast: firmly #1 domestic​

Per CCA (Kezhi) Consulting estimates:

Metric	2025	2026 (forecast)
Huawei Ascend total shipments	812k cards	1.026M cards
Of which 950PR	—	~800k units
Of which 950DT	—	~100k-200k units

Huawei has completed the product transition from the 910 series to the 950 series. The internet industry has become Ascend's largest application market; competitive advantage is extending from single-hardware performance to software ecosystem and system capabilities.

4. Going overseas: formal South Korea entry in Q4​

Per Korean media ETNews, Huawei plans Q4 2026 to formally enter the South Korean market with the Ascend series and Atlas 950 SuperPod:

• Local distributor agreements signed; two channel partners including SK Shieldus selected
• Main products: 950PR (mass-produced and delivered since April) and 950DT (launched Q4)
• Official line: 950PR inference performance is 2.87× that of H20, priced at about 1/4 of it

5. WAIC 2026: 1024-card live debut confirmed​

At WAIC 2026 (July 17-20, Shanghai), Huawei's Atlas 950 SuperPoD live hardware made its first public appearance — a 16 compute-cabinet, 1,024 Ascend-card scale — and won the conference's top honor, the SAIL Award:

• Core metrics: total compute 1 EFLOPS FP8 / 2 EFLOPS FP4, 256 TB globally unified memory addressing, Lingqu 2.0 interconnect, 3 μs ultra-low RTT latency
• Full configuration: 128 compute cabinets + 32 interconnect cabinets = 160 cabinets, ~1000㎡ footprint, carrying 8,192 Ascend 950DT, planned Q4 2026 launch
• Commercial foundation: previous-gen 384 SuperNode has cumulatively shipped 750+ units, deployed in 20+ industries
• Software ecosystem: CANN fully open-sourced end of 2025; community incubated 67 projects, 12.44M+ lines of code, 3,500+ monthly active developers

WAIC's debut confirmed the 950 series' "SuperNode-first" product logic: beyond single-card compute, system-level effective compute (interconnect bandwidth + unified memory + low latency) is the key dimension for domestic compute to benchmark against international flagships.

Ascend roadmap recap​

Product	Positioning	Key metrics (official roadmap)
950PR	Inference	1 PFLOPS (FP8) / 2 PFLOPS (FP4), 2 TB/s interconnect
950DT	Training	SuperNode core, launched Q4
960	Train/inference	2 PFLOPS (FP8) / 4 PFLOPS
970	Next-gen	In planning

Industry interpretation​

1. Domestic substitution moves from inference to training: 950PR (inference) ramps first, 950DT (training) follows in Q4, combined with the Atlas 950 SuperPoD ten-thousand-card interconnect — domestic compute now has the complete "training substitution" puzzle for the first time.
2. Capacity is the biggest variable: order certainty is extremely high, but SMIC/Hua Hong advanced-process capacity, HBM supply, and advanced packaging remain ramp bottlenecks — the root of "scarce spot supply."
3. Going overseas opens a second growth curve: bulk procurement from South Korea, Malaysia, Russia, and Latin America marks domestic compute's shift from "internal circulation" to "external circulation."

Related links​

• Huawei Ascend 950PR specs
• Huawei Ascend 950DT specs
• Huawei Ascend 950 specs

References​

• China intelligent-compute chip competitive landscape (CCA data) - IDCquan
• Ascend 950 series capacity and orders - Eastmoney
• WAIC catalyst: Huawei Ascend 950 SuperNode live debut - 10jqka
• Huawei Ascend 950 enters South Korea in Q4: 2.87× H20 inference - Toutiao

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Data in this article is based on official and major brokerage research; capacity/orders are dynamic figures and will be continuously updated.

July 2026, NVIDIA's next-gen AI compute platform Vera Rubin officially began its first shipments, succeeding the Blackwell architecture, with large-scale mass production planned for H2 2026. First customers include Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, Oracle, and other large cloud providers.

1. World's First VR200 NVL72 Delivered (Milestone)​

CoreWeave jointly with Dell announced that the world's first NVIDIA Vera Rubin VR200 NVL72 cabinet has been officially delivered and passed the L11 full-cabinet hardware diagnostics on the first try. This marks Rubin's move from roadmap to physical product, with no major bottlenecks in core supply-chain links (HBM4, advanced packaging, liquid cooling, ultra-high-power power supply).

VR200 NVL72 Core Configuration​

Metric	Vera Rubin VR200 NVL72
Cabinet codename	Oberon
GPU	72 Rubin GPUs
CPU	36 Vera CPUs
Per-GPU memory	288 GB HBM4
Per-CPU memory	1.5 TB LPDDR5X
Total cabinet HBM4	20.7 TB (20,736 GB)
Total cabinet LPDDR5X	54 TB
Interconnect	NVLink 6 full mesh
Inference performance	~3.6 exaFLOPS class
Cooling	Liquid cooling
Generational improvement	~3.5× per-GPU compute, ~2.8× memory bandwidth (vs Blackwell)

Vera CPU integrates 88 custom Olympus ARM cores, with 1.8 TB/s interconnect to the GPU, usable as a GPU memory expansion pool. NVIDIA completed its first Vera CPU deliveries to Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, and Oracle Cloud in May.

2. Samsung HBM4 Mass Production: Key Bottleneck Eases​

July 8, 2026, Samsung Electronics officially started HBM4 mass production for the Vera Rubin platform, with reported HBM4 mass-production yield reaching 70% (above the initial 60-65% expectation). Confirmation of this key supply-chain link clears obstacles for Rubin's large-scale deployment.

HBM Supply Landscape (2026 Q1)	Share
SK hynix	45%
Samsung	40%
Micron	15%

HBM4 uses 8-layer stacking (12-layer design planned for 2028), priced at about 2.8× HBM3e. TrendForce predicts HBM supply will grow 65% annually, with HBM4 reaching 35% of total output by 2027 Q4.

3. Rubin Ultra Sky-High Price: HBM Cost Dominates​

Per BofA Global Research estimates, the Rubin generation will push single-server cost to a new high:

Cost Item	Rubin VR200 (Oberon)	Comparison
Cabinet HBM4 usage	20,736 GB	—
HBM4 unit price	~$18.40 / GB	Blackwell (HBM3e) ~$11.26 / GB
HBM4 cost alone	~$382K	Excluding LPDDR5X
Rubin Ultra cabinet estimated price	~$21M	ITHome / BofA estimate

4. Rubin Ultra Design Change: Original 4-die Cancelled (per SemiAnalysis)​

Semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis (2026-06-30) disclosed that the original 4-die Rubin Ultra GPU unveiled at GTC 2026 has been cancelled; the version actually shipping in 2027 is roughly halved in scale and performance:

• Reason for cancellation: The original integrated 4 compute dies + 16 HBM4E in a single CoWoS-L package; the substrate warped under the 4-die config, causing compute-die-to-substrate contact failure and yield collapse; the alternative CoPoS won't reach mass production until after late 2028, missing the 2027 node.
• New approach: Changed to dual-die (same construction as standard Rubin) + HBM4E, ~384 GB HBM4E per GPU (higher than standard Rubin's 288 GB), but total compute and bandwidth only half the original; to approach the original's aggregate compute, NVIDIA plans to assemble "2+2" board-level configs within the Kyber rack to reach four-die equivalent scale.
• Kyber rack delay: The companion Kyber NVL144 rack is delayed 12+ months to 2028 due to midplane PCB manufacturing difficulties; the 800V DC power scheme is likewise delayed to 2028.

⚠️ Note: NVIDIA has not commented officially on the above design change; some on X argue "the chip count hasn't changed, it's old news reheated." This section is compiled from SemiAnalysis public reports, subject to final NVIDIA disclosure. We have marked "specs pending official confirmation" on the Rubin Ultra preview card.

Industry Interpretation​

1. "Never doubt" moment realized: Rubin's first delivery passed L11 on the first try, dispelling market doubts about "Rubin delay," locking in H2 2026 AI compute supply certainty ahead of time.
2. Designed for Agentic AI: Rubin targets agentic workflows and ultra-long-context inference, further lowering the training/inference cost curve for trillion-parameter models.
3. HBM is the full-chain winner: 20.7 TB HBM4 per cabinet is enormous usage; SK hynix, Samsung, Micron, advanced packaging (CoWoS-L), liquid cooling, and power retrofitting all benefit across the chain, while also becoming the biggest cost and capacity constraint.

Related Links​

• NVIDIA Rubin R200 spec page
• NVIDIA Vera CPU spec page
• NVIDIA Rubin CPX spec page

References​

• Samsung Starts Mass Production for Nvidia's Vera Rubin AI Platform (2026-07-08)
• Rubin cabinet first delivery: CoreWeave and Dell deliver world's first VR200 NVL72
• Nvidia Rubin Ultra cabinet estimated at $21M - ITHome (2026-07-09)
• NVIDIA Vera Rubin scheduled for July 2026 shipment - VendorDeep

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This article continuously tracks Vera Rubin mass-production ramp and HBM4 supply-chain dynamics.

In the first half of 2026, the AI chip industry underwent a historic turning point — the center of gravity shifted from the "training race" to "inference efficiency," domestic chip market share broke 40% for the first time, NVIDIA built higher barriers with Blackwell Ultra, and the inference-specific chip track bloomed in diversity.

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I. Compute Doubles Again: NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra Launch (June 1)​

On June 1, 2026, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang unveiled the new-generation AI chip Blackwell Ultra at Computex 2026 (Taipei), setting a new starting line for the AI infrastructure race over the next two years.

Key Specs​

Metric	Blackwell Ultra	B200	Improvement
FP8 compute	20 petaFLOPS	~10 petaFLOPS	100%
Architecture	Blackwell Ultra	Blackwell	Upgrade
Expected delivery	2027 Q1	2026 Q1	—
Positioning	Hyperscale training + inference	Training + inference	Flagship

Industry Significance​

1. Direct impact of doubled compute: 20 petaFLOPS FP8 means training time for hundred-billion-parameter models drops sharply; trillion-parameter model training moves from "scientific experiment" to "engineering routine"
2. System-level balance: Blackwell Ultra is not just a chip but a system-level engineering breakthrough across NVLink, HBM, cooling, and power delivery
3. Roadmap certainty: The Q1 2027 delivery timeline lets cloud vendors and AI labs plan infrastructure budgets 18 months ahead

Challenges​

• Energy crisis: Doubled performance comes with sharply higher power; datacenter power and cooling design face extreme challenges
• Accessibility: Top-tier compute goes first to top cloud vendors; how smaller developers and research institutes reach compute at reasonable cost via cloud services
• Software stack adaptation: New hardware needs matching CUDA versions and framework support; software ecosystem maturity becomes the key bottleneck for compute conversion

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II. Domestic AI Chips: The Tipping Point from "Usable" to "Good"​

On June 16, 2026, Xinchuang World published "2026 China Domestic AI Chip Vendor Capability Quadrant", clearly outlining the overall domestic landscape.

2.1 Capability Quadrant Ranking​

Quadrant	Representative Vendors
Leader quadrant	Huawei Ascend, Hygon, Cambricon, Alibaba T-Head, Moore Threads
Visionary quadrant	Baidu Kunlunxin, Biren, Enflame, Iluvatar, HardyVision
Contender quadrant	TSINGMICRO, Black Sesame, SemiDrive, Lisuan, Houmo
Challenger quadrant	Denglin, Zhicun, VeriSilicon, Rockchip, Intellifusion

2.2 Huawei Ascend: The Anchor of Domestic Compute​

Market Position​

• In 2025, Ascend series shipped 812,000 units, capturing 49% of the domestic AI accelerator card share, firmly No.1 domestically
• Ascend 950PR single-card FP8 compute reaches 1P (PetaFLOPS), FP4 compute reaches 2P
• Inference performance is about 2.87x that of NVIDIA H20, priced at only 72,000-75,000 RMB, a significant price/performance advantage

Full-Stack Advantage​

Huawei's "device-network-cloud-chip" integrated strategy is Ascend's core moat:

• Chip design: Da Vinci 3.0 architecture iterating continuously
• OS: HarmonyOS/Euler OS deeply optimized
• Networking: Euler network protocol stack
• Cloud: Huawei Cloud ModelArts platform seamlessly integrated

Latest Progress​

• On June 5, 2026, Shenzhen Hetao College, together with HIT (Shenzhen) and Huawei, completed full-parameter post-training of a 1.6-trillion-parameter DeepSeek V4 Pro model on an Ascend 910C cluster
• This is the first time domestic AI chips completed trillion-parameter-level model training, marking "domestic substitution" moving from inference to training

2.3 Cambricon: The First Profitable Domestic AI Chip Benchmark​

Performance Explosion​

Metric	Full-year 2025	2026 Q1	YoY Growth
Revenue	6.497B RMB	2.885B RMB	+453% / +160%
Net profit	2.059B RMB (first annual profit)	1.013B RMB	— / +185%

Core Product: Siyuan 590​

• In DeepSeek R1 inference scenarios, TPS reaches 942, about 50% higher than H20
• Years of joint optimization with ByteDance; strongest short-term cloud inference deployment capability
• Of 2.885B RMB Q1 2026 revenue, Siyuan 590 contributed over 70%

Potential Risks​

Absent from the 2nd 2026 "Safe and Reliable Evaluation Results Announcement"; the reason is unclear and will affect its domestic government/enterprise market performance.

2.4 TSINGMICRO: The "Third Route" of Reconfigurable Chips​

Technical Route​

TSINGMICRO adopts a reconfigurable dataflow architecture同源 with Groq LPU, finding a balance between GPU generality and ASIC extreme efficiency.

Metric	TSINGMICRO TX81	Traditional GPU	Advantage
Inference cost	Baseline	+100%	Reduced 50%
Energy efficiency	Baseline	Baseline	3x improvement
Architecture	Reconfigurable dataflow	SIMT/SIMD	Better for inference

Deployment Progress​

• Cumulative shipments of reconfigurable chips exceed 30 million units
• Scaled deployment in a dozen-plus thousand-card-scale intelligent computing centers nationwide
• Has begun A-share IPO tutoring; likely to become the "first reconfigurable chip stock"

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III. The Inference Chip Track: Core Signal of the Industry Shift​

On June 4, 2026, TrendForce published a deep report "The Era of Inference Economy: The Rules of AI Chips Are Being Rewritten," pointing out that the compute competition center of gravity is shifting from training to inference.

3.1 Why Now?​

Cost Structure Changed​

• Training is a one-time cost: Once a model is trained, marginal cost approaches zero
• Inference is a recurring cost: Every API call, every generated token represents compute consumption and gross-margin pressure
• Per-unit inference cost and energy efficiency directly affect gross margin and scale-expansion capability

Model Compression Tech Matured​

• 1.58-bit quantization and weight pruning let models maintain inference accuracy at extremely low memory footprint
• MoE (Mixture of Experts) architecture activates only a few expert sub-networks per inference via "partial wake-up," greatly reducing actual computation
• The rise of slimmed models provides commercial viability for hard-wired inference chips

3.2 NVIDIA's $20B Bet: Acquiring Groq (December 2025)​

On December 24, 2025, NVIDIA acquired Groq's inference technology license and core team for $20 billion, one of NVIDIA's largest M&A/tech acquisitions ever.

Strategic intent:

1. Fill the inference gap: NVIDIA GPU is unshakable in training, but inference efficiency was never its strongest suit
2. Counter specialized inference chips: Cerebras, Taalas, SambaNova and other startups are eroding the inference market
3. Position for Agentic AI: Agentic AI needs extremely low-latency, high-throughput inference

3.3 Taalas HC1: Proof of Concept for Hard-Wired Inference​

On February 20, 2026, Canadian AI chip startup Taalas launched inference chip Taalas HC1, directly etching Meta's open-source AI model Llama 3.1 8B into the chip.

Key Metrics​

Metric	Taalas HC1	NVIDIA B200 (throughput optimized)	Advantage
Inference rate	16,960 tokens/s/user	Baseline	~4-5x
Cost per million tokens	0.75 cents	3.79 cents	Reduced 80%
Power	~250W	~700W	Reduced 64%
Process	TSMC N6	TSMC 4nm	More mature
HBM	❌ Not used	✅ HBM3e	Lower cost

Technical Principle​

Taalas HC1 uses an aggressive Computing-in-Memory (CIM) implementation:

• Model weights directly固化 in Mask ROM (fully hardware-defined)
• On-chip SRAM handles dynamic data (KV cache and LoRA fine-tuning weights)
• Only 2 mask layers need modification to produce a dedicated chip for another AI model; turning an AI model into a physical chip takes only 2 months

Limitations​

• Lack of flexibility: Hard-wiring cannot cope with rapidly iterating model updates
• Ecosystem barrier: The current cloud market still relies on general-purpose platforms; customers may prefer flexible solutions that upgrade with models
• NRE cost: High one-time engineering cost, requiring sufficient deployment scale to amortize

3.4 Cerebras: The IPO Path of Wafer-Scale Integration​

On May 14, 2026, Cerebras Systems officially listed on NASDAQ, becoming the first wafer-scale AI chip company to go public.

Core Technology: Wafer-Scale Integration (WSI)​

• WSE-3 (third-gen wafer-scale engine): An entire 12-inch wafer as a single chip
• 44GB on-chip SRAM: No external HBM, eliminating the memory bandwidth bottleneck
• 21 PB/s bandwidth: On-chip communication bandwidth, thousands of times that of GPUs
• Partnership with OpenAI: Signed a 3-year, 750MW, $20B+ compute cooperation agreement

IPO Significance​

Cerebras's listing marks the maturation of the inference-specific chip track:

1. Capital markets begin pricing such companies
2. Proves "non-GPU" technical routes have commercial viability
3. Provides valuation references for other inference chip startups (Groq, SambaNova, Taalas, etc.)

3.5 Inference Chip Landscape: Multiple Technical Routes Coexist​

Company	Technical Route	Core Advantage	Representative Product
Taalas	Hard-wired (Mask ROM)	Extreme inference efficiency, low cost	HC1
Cerebras	Wafer-scale integration (WSI)	Ultra-high bandwidth, large-model inference	WSE-3
Groq	SRAM-first architecture	Deterministic latency, high throughput	LPU (acquired by NVIDIA)
d-Matrix	Digital in-memory compute (DIMC)	More flexible than hard-wiring	Corsair
Etched	Hard-wired Transformer	Works for all Transformer models	Sohu
Axelera AI	Digital in-memory compute (D-IMC) + RISC-V	High energy efficiency	Metis AIPU

TrendForce predicts:

• General-purpose GPUs still dominate training and multi-model environments
• But in mature, predictable scenarios, general-purpose GPU profit margins will be compressed
• The industry shifts from general compute monopoly to a dual-track structure of general + specialized coexistence

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IV. Overall Domestic AI Chip Landscape in H1 2026​

4.1 Industry Enters Scale-Up Phase​

Metric	2025	2026 Q1	Trend
Domestic AI accelerator shipments	1.65M units (41% share)	—	Rising
Total China AI accelerator shipments	~4M units	—	—
Hygon revenue growth	—	Doubled	↑
Cambricon revenue growth	—	+160%	↑
Moore Threads revenue growth	—	Doubled	↑

Leading vendors collectively entered the revenue realization channel, moving from "technical validation" to "scale commercialization."

4.2 Three Core Development Trends​

Trend 1: Capitalization Wave Reshapes the Landscape​

• Late 2025 to early 2026: Moore Threads, Iluvatar listed on the STAR Market
• Biren listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange
• Enflame STAR Market IPO accepted
• Kunlunxin, T-Head initiated listing processes
• TSINGMICRO, HardyVision and others advancing IPOs

Capitalization brings dual effects:

• ✅ Positive: Supports R&D and ecosystem building
• ⚠️ Negative: Valuation bubbles and revenue realization pressure

Trend 2: Capacity Becomes the Biggest Constraint Variable​

The contradiction between explosive domestic AI chip demand and limited advanced-process capacity is sharpening:

Vendor	Advanced-process capacity need	Actually obtained
Huawei Ascend	15K wafers/month (7nm-class)	Priority guaranteed
SMIC total capacity	~20K wafers/month (7nm-class)	—
Other vendors	~5K wafers/month combined	Extremely tight

Whether stable wafer capacity can be secured directly determines vendor survival. Cambricon's 75.4% inventory-to-revenue ratio is essentially a lock on capacity.

Trend 3: Competition Shifts from "Usable" to "Good"​

Early competition focused on "can it run the model"; now it's about "runtime efficiency, deployment cost":

Dimension	"Usable" era	"Good" era
Hardware performance	Can it run the model	Runtime efficiency, energy efficiency
Software stack	Basic adaptation	Maturity, framework breadth
Ecosystem	Existence	Developer community activity
Deployment cost	Insensitive	Core competitive factor

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V. H2 2026 Outlook​

5.1 Upcoming Key Events​

Time	Event	Impact
2026 Q3	NVIDIA Rubin architecture details revealed	Next-gen flagship specs unveiled
2026 Q3	Huawei Ascend 950PR/950DT formally launched	New benchmark for domestic inference chips
2026 Q4	AMD MI350X scaled delivery	NVIDIA Blackwell competitor
2026 Q4	Cambricon Siyuan 690 launch (est.)	New-gen training chip
2027 Q1	NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra delivery	New compute benchmark lands

5.2 Key Competitive Factors Over the Next Three Years​

1. Wafer capacity access: Advanced-process capacity is a scarce resource; vendors tied to SMIC and TSMC have inherent advantages
2. Capital operation efficiency: The IPO window is limited; raising enough capital on the market determines R&D sustainability
3. Software ecosystem depth: Hardware performance is only the entry ticket; software stack maturity, framework adaptation breadth, and developer community activity are the core moat

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VI. Conclusion: A Diverse Ecosystem Will Eventually Form​

In H1 2026, the AI chip industry is undergoing a historic transition from "one dominant player" to "pluralistic coexistence."

• NVIDIA builds higher training barriers with Blackwell Ultra while laying out inference efficiency via the Groq acquisition
• Huawei Ascend holds the domestic compute baseline with full-stack capability; 950PR begins to surpass H20 in inference
• Cambricon proves the commercial viability of domestic AI chips by turning profitable first; Siyuan 590 surpasses international rivals in specific scenarios
• Cerebras, Taalas and other inference-specific chip companies opened a "non-GPU" third route
• TSINGMICRO's reconfigurable architecture provides a diversified technical route choice for China's AI chips

Over the next three years, the domestic AI chip endgame will form a pluralistic ecosystem where GPU, ASIC, and reconfigurable computing three technical routes coexist, with cloud and edge developing in coordination. "Domestic substitution" is no longer a slogan, but an industrial reality happening now.

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Data sources:

• Xinchuang World "2026 China Domestic AI Chip Vendor Capability Quadrant" (2026-06-16)
• TrendForce "The Era of Inference Economy: The Rules of AI Chips Are Being Rewritten" (2026-06-04)
• RayByte "Compute Doubles! NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra Chip Launched" (2026-06-02)
• Official financial reports and announcements of each company

Related reading:

• Huawei Ascend 910C Specs Deep Dive
• Full Comparison Table

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June 2026 saw multiple milestone events in the AI chip field, marking acceleration of two major trends: "domestic substitution" and "de-NVIDIA-ization."

1. Huawei Ascend 910C Completes 1.6-Trillion-Parameter DeepSeek V4 Pro Training (2026-06-05)​

Event Overview​

June 5, 2026, Shenzhen Hetao College, together with Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen Big Data Research Institute, Huawei, and other teams, relied on an Ascend 910C domestic AI compute cluster to successfully complete full-parameter post-training of the 1.6-trillion-parameter DeepSeek V4 Pro large model.

Technical Significance​

Metric	Value
Model parameters	1.6 trillion
Training chip	Ascend 910C cluster
Training type	Full Parameter Post-Training
Significance	First time domestic AI chips complete trillion-parameter-level model training

Industry Impact​

1. Breaks technology blockade: Proves domestic AI chips can train trillion-parameter models
2. Accelerates "farewell to NVIDIA": DeepSeek fully switches to Huawei Ascend, reducing dependence on H100
3. Domestic substitution inflection point: From "inference substitution" to "training substitution"

Related Links​

• Huawei Ascend 910C spec page
• DeepSeek V4 Pro official announcement (pending)

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2. OpenAI Launches First Custom AI Inference Chip Jalapeño (2026-06-24)​

Event Overview​

June 24, 2026, OpenAI and Broadcom jointly launched the first custom AI inference chip Jalapeño, with a design cycle of only 9 months (industry average 18 months), using TSMC 3nm process.

Key Metrics​

Metric	Jalapeño	Comparison (Blackwell)
Process	TSMC 3nm	TSMC 4nm
Architecture	Systolic Array	Blackwell GPU
Design cycle	9 months	~18 months
Inference cost	-50%	Baseline
AI-assisted design	✅ First	❌ No
Deployment	End of 2026	Shipped

Strategic Significance​

1. First AI chip with AI-assisted design: OpenAI used models like GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark to assist architecture exploration
2. Accelerates "de-NVIDIA-ization": Tech giants (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI) collectively develop custom chips
3. Inference cost revolution: For OpenAI processing hundreds of millions of API calls daily, a 50% cost reduction is significant

Related Links​

• OpenAI Jalapeño spec page
• OpenAI Custom Chip Deep Dive

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3. NVIDIA Launches RTX Spark AI PC Superchip at Computex 2026 (2026-06-01)​

Event Overview​

June 1, 2026, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang launched the RTX Spark AI PC superchip at Computex 2026 / GTC Taipei, in collaboration with MediaTek, using an Arm CPU + Blackwell GPU unified-memory architecture.

Key Metrics​

Metric	RTX Spark
CPU	Up to 20-core Arm (with MediaTek)
GPU	6,144 CUDA cores (Blackwell)
Unified memory	128GB LPDDR5X (shared CPU+GPU)
Memory bandwidth	300 GB/s
AI compute	~1 PFLOPS (est.)
Model capacity	Can run 120B-parameter models
Context	Up to 1 million tokens
TDP	~100W (est.)
Availability	Fall 2026

Industry Impact​

1. NVIDIA enters PC chip market: Challenges Intel's dominance in personal computers
2. New AI PC standard: Run 120B-parameter models locally, 1M-token context
3. Windows transforms into AI Agent platform: Deep collaboration with Microsoft OpenShell framework

Related Links​

• NVIDIA RTX Spark spec page
• Computex 2026 Chip War Deep Dive (external link)

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4. MIIT Publishes "2026 AI Chip Industry Development White Paper" (2026-06-09)​

Event Overview​

June 9, 2026, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published the "2026 AI Chip Industry Development White Paper," predicting the domestic AI chip market will exceed 200 billion RMB in 2026.

Key Predictions​

Metric	2026 Prediction
Market size	Exceed 200 billion RMB
Domestic chip share	>50% (41% in 2025)
Edge inference chips	Significant progress
Shipment growth	More than double (vs 2025)

Industry Significance​

1. Domestic AI chip capitalization accelerates: Cambricon, Enflame, Moore Threads, etc. accelerate IPOs
2. Edge inference becomes the breakthrough: Easier to achieve domestic substitution than training chips
3. Policy dividend continues: Domestic substitution upgraded from "market behavior" to "national strategy"

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5. ByteDance in Talks to Procure 50K Iluvatar Inference Chips (2026-06-17)​

Event Overview​

June 17, 2026, Reuters reported that ByteDance is in talks with Shanghai AI chip firm Iluvatar to procure at least 50,000 AI chips, mainly for inference tasks.

Deal Details​

Item	Content
Buyer	ByteDance
Supplier	Iluvatar
Chip model	ZhiKai series (inference GPU)
Quantity	At least 50,000
Use	Inference workloads
Training chip	TianTai series

Industry Significance​

1. Domestic GPU top player "adds a member": Iluvatar enters a top internet company's supply chain for the first time
2. ByteDance 2026 capex raised over 200B RMB: Mainly for AI compute and datacenters
3. "Domestic substitution" extends from government/SOEs to private tech giants

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Summary: Three Trends in June 2026 AI Chip Industry​

Trend 1: "Domestic Substitution" Moves from Inference to Training​

• Ascend 910C completes 1.6-trillion-parameter model training → Proves domestic chips have training capability
• DeepSeek fully switches to Ascend → Leading AI companies first to "farewell to NVIDIA"
• ByteDance procures Iluvatar → Private tech giants follow

Trend 2: "De-NVIDIA-ization" from Slogan to Action​

• OpenAI Jalapeño → First custom chip, inference cost -50%
• Google TPU, Amazon Trainium, Microsoft Maia → Continuous iteration
• Meta MTIA, Apple M5 Ultra → Increased investment

Trend 3: AI PC and Edge Inference Become New Battlefield​

• NVIDIA RTX Spark → New AI PC standard, launches Fall 2026
• Edge inference chip localization accelerates → Key mention in MIIT white paper
• "Local trillion-parameter model execution" → New consumer market selling point

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Looking Ahead (2026 H2)​

1. Ascend 950DT full scale-up (2026 Q4) → Huawei's latest-gen training chip
2. NVIDIA Rubin R200 shipment (2026 H2) → Next-gen flagship
3. AMD MI400 Helios rack (2026 H2) → Targets NVIDIA GB200
4. OpenAI Jalapeño deployment (end of 2026) → Gigawatt-scale datacenters
5. Domestic AI chip shipments more than double → CITIC Securities prediction

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References​

• Huawei Ascend 910C Completes DeepSeek V4 Pro Training - Tencent News
• OpenAI Jalapeño Chip Launch - CNBC
• NVIDIA RTX Spark Launch - Tencent News
• MIIT AI Chip White Paper - RayByte
• ByteDance Procures Iluvatar Chips - Sina Finance

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This article is continuously updated. Please provide the latest developments.

On June 24, 2026, OpenAI and Broadcom jointly announced their first in-house AI inference chip, Jalapeño. This ASIC designed specifically for large language model inference went from design to tape-out in just 9 months and cuts inference cost by roughly 50%, marking OpenAI's transformation from a pure model company into a full-stack AI infrastructure provider.

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1. Core conclusions (read this first)​

Dimension	Jalapeño	Current GPU solution	Advantage
Inference cost	-50%	Baseline	✅ Half the cost
Performance per watt	Clearly superior	Most advanced accelerator	✅ Energy-efficiency lead
Design cycle	9 months	~18 months	✅ 2× faster
Positioning	Inference ASIC	Train+inference GPU	Dedicated optimization
Supply	Internal only	Market purchase	⚠️ Not for sale

One-line summary: Jalapeño is a key step in OpenAI's full-stack AI strategy, using in-house silicon to cut inference cost 50% while opening a new paradigm of "AI-assisted design of AI chips."

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2. What is Jalapeño?​

2.1 Basic information​

Item	Detail
Name	Jalapeño (a chili pepper)
Type	Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)
Positioning	Large language model inference
Announced	2026-06-24
Taped out	Sep 2025 (est., 9-month rapid tape-out)
Deployment	End of 2026 (gigawatt-scale data centers)
Partners	Broadcom, TSMC, Celestica
Process	TSMC 3nm
Architecture	Systolic Array
HBM	8 stacks (est. HBM3E or HBM4)

2.2 Why "Jalapeño"?​

Jalapeño is a Mexican chili known for "medium heat, strong flavor." OpenAI's naming hints that the chip:

• ✅ Medium heat: not the most aggressive architecture (vs Cerebras WSE), but effective enough
• ✅ Strong flavor: strong presence in inference scenarios (50% cost reduction)
• ✅ Appetizer: just "the first step of a multi-generation roadmap" (Broadcom CEO Hock Tan)

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3. Deep technical analysis​

3.1 9-month rapid tape-out: the new paradigm of AI-assisted chip design​

Normally, designing an ASIC from scratch takes 1.5 to 2 years. Jalapeño went from initial design to manufacturing tape-out in just 9 months.

Key reason: deep software-hardware co-development

Technique	Description
AI-assisted architecture exploration	OpenAI used its own frontier models (GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark) to explore chip architecture design space
AI power simulation	AI models for power simulation and optimization
RL optimization	RL to optimize chip placement and routing
Broadcom silicon implementation	Broadcom provides top-tier ASIC implementation (network, switch chip experience)

OpenAI President Greg Brockman said:

"We use the frontier models that serve our users to optimize the infrastructure that runs the models of the future."

3.2 Architecture optimized for inference​

Unlike general-purpose GPUs, Jalapeño is an ASIC built from scratch around OpenAI's deep understanding of LLM inference workloads:

Architecture feature	Description
Reduce data movement	Core principle is minimizing data movement (the main bottleneck in inference)
Balanced compute-memory-network	Resource allocation optimized for inference, bringing real utilization closer to theoretical peak
High throughput + low latency	Aims to combine the throughput of leading accelerators with the low latency of the fastest dedicated inference systems
Future model support	Supports not only current models (GPT-5, GPT-5.3) but adapts to next-gen inference needs

3.3 Full-stack platform: more than a chip​

Jalapeño is a multi-generation compute platform, not just a chip:

Component	Supplier	Description
Accelerator chip	OpenAI design, TSMC fab	TSMC 3nm, 8-stack HBM
Network switch chip	Broadcom Tomahawk	High-speed interconnect (competes with NVIDIA NVLink)
Board, rack, system	Celestica	Full-rack solution
Software stack	OpenAI	Deep adaptation for GPT, Codex, Agent products

Deployment target: gigawatt-scale data centers

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan said:

"Jalapeño will begin deployment this year in gigawatt-scale data centers with Microsoft and other partners."

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4. Performance and cost analysis​

4.1 Inference cost cut 50%​

Although OpenAI's official release was conservative on Jalapeño's cost savings — only stating its "performance per watt is substantially better than today's state of the art" without a specific percentage — per Bloomberg, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan revealed:

Early internal tests show Jalapeño achieves roughly 50% inference cost savings versus today's mainstream AI GPUs.

Significance for OpenAI:

Item	Current (GPU)	Jalapeño	Savings
Daily API calls	Hundreds of millions	Hundreds of millions	—
Inference cost share	~60-70% of operating cost	~30-35%	-50%
Annual compute spend	Billions of dollars	Hundreds of millions	Saves billions

4.2 Performance per watt clearly better than state of the art​

OpenAI's announcement states:

"Jalapeño engineering samples have successfully run complex reinforcement-learning tasks such as GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark at target frequency and power; early tests show performance per watt substantially better than today's most advanced AI accelerators."

Comparison target: NVIDIA Blackwell (today's most advanced AI accelerator)

Metric	Jalapeño	NVIDIA Blackwell	Note
Performance per watt	Clearly superior	Baseline	OpenAI official statement
Inference latency	On par with fastest dedicated inference systems	Baseline	Target
Throughput	On par with leading accelerators	Baseline	Target
TDP	Not disclosed (est. 400-700W)	700-1000W	Jalapeño possibly lower

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5. Impact on the AI chip market​

5.1 "De-NVIDIA-ification" accelerates​

Jalapeño's launch is another footnote in big-tech's collective challenge to NVIDIA's market dominance:

Vendor	In-house chip	Type	Status	Relation to OpenAI
Google	TPU v6e / Ironwood	Train+inference	✅ Commercial	Google Cloud supplies OpenAI
Amazon	Trainium 3	Training	✅ Launched	AWS supplies OpenAI
Microsoft	Maia 100	Train+inference	✅ Launched	OpenAI exclusive partner
Meta	MTIA	Train+inference	✅ Launched	—
Apple	Neural Engine	On-device inference	✅ Commercial	—
OpenAI	Jalapeño	Inference	🚧 Deploy end of 2026	Internal + possibly sold to third parties

5.2 OpenAI is not about to fully "abandon" NVIDIA​

Brockman admitted:

"We simply cannot get compute fast enough."

Currently OpenAI is simultaneously procuring chips from NVIDIA, AWS, AMD, and Cerebras; Jalapeño is a structural supplement to its explosive compute demand, not a replacement.

5.3 Possibly sold to third parties​

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan specifically emphasized:

"This is just 'the start of a multi-generation roadmap'; OpenAI and Broadcom aim to jointly build gigawatt-scale compute clusters."

This means OpenAI may sell its hardware to third parties, provided it can secure enough supply from Broadcom and TSMC.

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6. Jalapeño vs other in-house chips​

Metric	Jalapeño (OpenAI)	TPU v6e (Google)	Trainium 3 (Amazon)	Maia 100 (Microsoft)
Announced	2026-06-24	2024	Q4 2025	2023
Type	Inference ASIC	Train+inference TPU	Training ASIC	Train+inference
Process	TSMC 3nm	TSMC 4nm	TSMC 5nm (est.)	TSMC 5nm (est.)
For sale	❌ Internal only (maybe later)	✅ GCP	✅ AWS	❌ Internal only
Design cycle	9 months	~18 months	~18 months	~18 months
AI-assisted design	✅ First	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No
Cost advantage	-50% inference cost	Optimized	Optimized	Optimized

Key differences:

• ✅ Jalapeño is the first AI chip designed with AI assistance
• ✅ Jalapeño design cycle only 9 months (industry average 18 months)
• ⚠️ Jalapeño not for sale (at least for now)

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7. Future roadmap​

7.1 Multi-generation chip platform​

Jalapeño is just "the start of a multi-generation roadmap":

Time	Event
End of 2026	Jalapeño initial deployment (gigawatt-scale data centers)
2027	Jalapeño v2 (est., architecture optimization)
2027-2028	Jalapeño training version (est., challenging TPU/Trainium)
2028 and beyond	Gigawatt-scale compute cluster fully built

7.2 OpenAI full-stack AI infrastructure strategy​

Layer	OpenAI in-house	Outsourced/procured
Models	✅ GPT-5, GPT-5.3, Codex	—
Chips	✅ Jalapeño (inference)	NVIDIA GPU, AWS Trainium, AMD GPU
Systems	✅ With Celestica	Microsoft Azure data centers
Network	✅ Broadcom Tomahawk	Microsoft Azure network
Cloud platform	❌ None	Microsoft Azure (exclusive partner)

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8. Industry reaction and expert views​

8.1 Supportive views​

Expert	View
Broadcom CEO Hock Tan	"Jalapeño is just the start of a multi-generation roadmap; the goal is to jointly build gigawatt-scale compute clusters."
OpenAI President Greg Brockman	"We use the frontier models that serve our users to optimize the infrastructure that runs the models of the future."
Industry insiders	"Jalapeño's launch is another footnote in big-tech's collective challenge to NVIDIA's market dominance."

8.2 Skeptical views​

Concern	Description
Not for sale	Currently internal only; third parties cannot purchase, limited impact on NVIDIA's market share
Software ecosystem	OpenAI must build its own software stack; competing with CUDA is hard
Supply capacity	TSMC capacity is limited; can it meet OpenAI + Broadcom + other customers' demand?
Opaque performance data	OpenAI has not released specs (compute, memory, bandwidth, TDP), hard to assess objectively

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9. Significance for developers​

9.1 If OpenAI sells Jalapeño to developers in the future...​

Scenario	Current (NVIDIA GPU)	Future (Jalapeño)
Inference cost	Baseline	-50%
Inference latency	Baseline	Possibly lower
Software stack	CUDA + TensorRT	OpenAI API (possibly open-source stack)
Procurement difficulty	High (export controls, supply shortage)	Low (OpenAI direct supply)

9.2 Worth watching even if not sold​

• ✅ 50% inference cost cut forces NVIDIA, AMD, Intel to lower GPU prices
• ✅ The AI-assisted chip design paradigm will be rapidly copied by the industry
• ✅ The 9-month tape-out cycle becomes a new industry benchmark

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10. Summary​

Dimension	Assessment
Technology innovation	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ First AI chip designed with AI assistance, 9-month tape-out
Cost advantage	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 50% inference cost cut, billions saved annually
Strategic significance	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ OpenAI transforms from pure model company to full-stack AI infrastructure provider
Market impact	⭐⭐⭐⭐ "De-NVIDIA-ification" accelerates, big-tech in-house chip camp grows
Openness	⭐⭐ Internal only for now, possibly sold to third parties later

Final recommendations:

• 🇨🇳 China market: Keep watching Huawei Ascend, Cambricon MLU, Moore Threads MTT (Jalapeño not sold to China)
• 🌍 International market: Watch whether Jalapeño is eventually sold externally and its impact on NVIDIA's market share
• 💡 Developers: Watch for possible OpenAI API price cuts (50% inference cost cut may partially pass through)

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References​

• OpenAI official announcement (technical white paper pending)
• Broadcom CEO Hock Tan interview
• Bloomberg: Jalapeño inference cost cut 50%
• SemiWiki: Jalapeño technical details
• Tom's Hardware: Jalapeño architecture analysis
• ESMChina: Jalapeño 9-month tape-out

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Disclaimer: Some specs in this article are estimates, subject to OpenAI's official technical white paper. OpenAI will release a detailed performance white paper in the coming months.

Last updated: June 26, 2026