Chinese tech firms respond to calls to use local Al chips

Beijing is pushing them to curb their reliance on US chipmaker Nvidia

- Joyce ZK Lim China Correspondent

A humanoid robot on display at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on July 29. Locally developed AI chips are projected to take a 55 per cent share of the Chinese market in 2027, up from 17 per cent in 2023, according to one forecast.

(PHOTO: AFP)

Chinese tech companies have been showcasing support for homegrown artificial intelligence (AI) chips, as Beijing presses firms to curb their reliance on US chipmaker Nvidia and use local processors in a push for self-sufficiency.

Tencent Cloud said on Sept 16 that its computing platform, which uses many different chips to provide AI computing power, is fully adapted to support “mainstream domestic chips”.

“We are seeing more and more domestically produced chips being available in the market, I would say, in the past 12 months,” Tencent senior executive vice president Dowson Tong told reporters on Sept 15. “We are using more, definitely.”

The company is not alone. Alibaba and Baidu are said to have begun using chips developed in-house to train some AI models, according to a report by tech publication The Information in September.

In August, Chinese Al startup DeepSeek released an upgrade to its flagship large language model, saying it has a format compatible with the next generation of domestic chips. And in July, another Chinese model maker, StepFun, announced an “ecosystem innovation alliance” with a handful of local chip companies.

“The AI industry in China is changing rapidly, with greater uptake of domestic hardware, as we enter a transition period to what will likely be a fully Chinese Al stack,” said technology expert Paul Triolo, a partner at consultancy DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group.