Huawei launches server chipset as it drains new growth channels
HONG KONG: Huawei Technologies launched a new chipset for use in servers at a time when China is pushing to improve its chip capability and reduce its strong import dependence, especially from the US
Huawei, which receives the bulk of its revenue from To sell telecommunications equipment and smartphones, seek growth markets in cloud computing and enterprise services, as the equipment industry is under increasing control in the West, guarding the Chinese government's influence over the company. Huawei has repeatedly refused such an influence.
Chinese companies are also seeking to minimize the impact of a trade dispute that has seen China and the United States drop rates on each other's technology imports.
For Huawei, the launch of the chipset – called the Kunpeng 920 and the design of the subsidiary HiSilicon – increases the credentials as a semiconductor designer.
The Shenzhen-based company is already creating the Kirin series of smart phone players in its high-end phones, and Rising series of chips for artificial intelligence computing launched in October.
It said that the last 7 nanometer, 64-core central processing unit (CPU) would provide much higher computing performance for data centers and slash power consumption. It is based on the architecture of British chip design firm ARM – owned by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp – which attempts to challenge the dominance of server CPUs from US manufacturer Intel Corp..
Huawei aims to "drive the development of the ARM ecosystem," said Chief Marketing Officer William Xu. He said the chip has "unique benefits in performance and power consumption".
Xu also said Huawei will continue its "long-term strategic partnership" with Intel.
Huawei also launched its TaiShan series servers powered by the new chipset, built for large data, distributed storage and ARM native applications.
The company founded the chip designer HiSilicon in 2004 to reduce its dependence on imports.
In modem chips, Huawei internally sources 54 percent of these into its own devices, with 22 percent coming from Qualcomm Inc and the rest from elsewhere, evidence provided by a Qualcomm antitrust attempt.
(Reporting by Sijia Jiang; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Christopher Cushing)
