Why DeepSeek wants thousands of AI chips from Huawei
What's the story
DeepSeek, a Chinese start-up, plans to deploy at least 160,000 of Huawei's top-tier AI chips. The order is part of a plan to build a massive data center in Inner Mongolia. This facility could become one of the biggest clusters of Huawei AI chips and further China's goal to reduce reliance on NVIDIA.
Chip strategy
DeepSeek's chip deployment strategy
DeepSeek plans to use Huawei's advanced Ascend 950DT chips for running its models.
However, the deployment schedule will depend on Huawei's production capacity.
Despite being designed for training tasks, DeepSeek doesn't plan to use the 950DT chips for this purpose at present.
The company has been using NVIDIA accelerators for these crucial steps in its previous models' training attempts.
Production challenges
Component shortages and production limitations
Huawei, China's semiconductor leader, is currently unable to meet DeepSeek's demand for more of its top chips.
Component shortages are expected to limit the production of the 950DT at a few hundred thousand units this year.
Despite these challenges, if completed as planned, the Inner Mongolia hub will play a key role in advancing AI development at DeepSeek.
Infrastructure ambitions
Energy consumption and government support
DeepSeek's AI infrastructure plans in Inner Mongolia are on a gigawatt scale, which would consume enough energy to power some 750,000 homes.
The 160,000 Ascend 950DT chips DeepSeek intends to deploy there would only be a part of that capacity.
The company has sought Beijing's assistance in persuading Huawei to allocate more chips at a faster pace for its ambitious project.