Huawei leads Chinese AI alliances to reduce reliance on US tech

Huawei has emerged as a leader in efforts to put together a domestic AI ecosystem that will reduce reliance on American technology as China struggles with stringent export controls. 

The Chinese tech giant recently joined other artificial intelligence companies in China to form two new industry alliances that will work vigorously towards that end as quickly as possible, even as Donald Trump wields the discretion to use export restrictions as leverage in his tariff wars.

Huawei is slowly becoming China’s Nvidia

China’s tech firms are reportedly aiming to develop a domestic ecosystem that will reduce dependence on foreign tech as they struggle under America’s export restrictions on advanced Nvidia chipsets.

By accident or by design, the announcements were timed to clash with the three-day World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, which is ending on Monday. The event also showcased a variety of new products, including Huawei’s AI computing system that reportedly rivals Nvidia’s most advanced offering.

The building has already started and the alliance’s name has been revealed as the “Model-Chip Ecosystem Innovation Alliance.” Its main function is to serve as an umbrella platform for developers of large language models (LLMs) and AI chip manufacturers in China.

The move has been widely praised by chipmakers in the Asian region as an innovative one that has the potential to connect “the complete technology chain from chips to models to infrastructure.”

Other manufacturers of graphics processing units (GPUs) in the alliance include Enflame, Biren, and Moore Threads, which have suffered from U.S. sanctions that ban them from getting access to advanced U.S. tech.

The alliance was announced by StepFun, an LLM developer. A second alliance that aims to “promote the deep integration of AI technology and industrial transformation,” proposed by the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce AI Committee, has since followed.

Participants include SenseTime, a company that also got hit with sanctions by the U.S, StepFun and another LLM developer, MiniMax, as well as chipmakers Metax and Iluvatar CoreX.

One of the star products of the conference was Huawei’s CloudMatrix 384, a chip that utilizes 384 of its latest 910C chips and allegedly beats Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72 on some metrics, according to U.S. research firm SemiAnalysis.

The “clustering” chip innovation it boasts has also been showcased in at least six other Chinese computing firms’ chip technology, including Metax, which demonstrated an AI supernode that featured 128 C550 chips designed to support large-scale liquid-cooled data center requirements.

Domestic alliances grow as Trump intensifies efforts to meet Xi Jinping

The alliance is proof that if China has to endure Trump’s export restrictions for much longer, it will encourage the formation of a market independent of foreign technology.

Per Jensen Huang’s warnings, President Trump is also aware that time is running out on America’s leverage in terms of banning China’s access to Nvidia’s chips. He has now frozen technology export restrictions to China in a bid to facilitate trade negotiations, particularly to secure a meeting with President Xi Jinping.

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which runs export controls, has reportedly been told in recent months to avoid tough moves on China. Meanwhile, U.S. and Chinese officials are set to meet in Stockholm on Monday for the third time for a round of trade talks following previous meetings in Geneva and London.

Some officials have argued that Trump’s renewed desire to meet Xi is an acknowledgment of the power shift that has already occurred in the tariff wars, something China gave Trump a taste of when it restricted the export of critical rare earths and magnets to the U.S. in May.

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