DeepSeek Partners with Huawei to Develop AI Chip Compatible with Ascend 950DT

DeepSeek is collaborating with Huawei to design the next generation of AI chips, aiming to build models that do not rely on NVIDIA's computing power. Huawei engineers have entered DeepSeek's office to understand the model architecture and algorithm requirements, and to test the chip's data transmission and compression capabilities. The first compatible chip is the Ascend 950DT. This move comes as China pushes to reduce its dependence on American chips. The Huawei Ascend 950DT is planned for release in 2027, but mass production may be delayed until 2028. To address the chip shortage, DeepSeek is using the TileLang programming language to bypass CUDA restrictions and is attempting to obtain the banned NVIDIA Blackwell chips through third-party data centers. Additionally, DeepSeek is forming a chip team and has begun testing clusters of over 1,000 processors.