Zhou Hongyi, the 54-year-old co-founder and chairman of Qihoo 360, said the company had recently been purchasing Huawei chips as part of its broader strategy to support the local industry, according to an interview with Chinese financial news outlet Yicai, published on Wednesday.
His remarks came after Nvidia announced last week that it received US government approval to resume sales of the H20, a graphics processing unit (GPU) specifically designed for the Chinese market to comply with US export control measures. Released in early 2024, the H20 was the preferred chip used by Chinese tech firms such as ByteDance and Tencent Holdings for AI training before Washington blocked its sale in April.
While admitting that there were technology gaps between domestically-developed chips and those from Nvidia, it was a “must” to stick to domestic chips as “the more they are used, the more they will improve”, Zhou said.
The H20 was now in an “awkward position” when used for AI inference, which does not require certain functions needed for AI training such as high-speed interconnectivity, making it less cost-effective than domestic chips, Zhou told Yicai.
There was a growing trend among Chinese tech companies to increase their use of domestic chips for both AI training and inference to mitigate the risks from US chip restrictions, amid China’s broader efforts to cut reliance on US technologies.
