Huawei raised prices for its most powerful AI chip by 60%
Chinese Huawei over the summer raised prices for its most powerful artificial intelligence accelerator by about 60%. Demand for AI equipment in China is so high that the company cannot keep up with providing customers with the necessary number of chips.
This is reported by Bloomberg with reference to informed sources.
According to the agency, Huawei has already informed some customers about a significant increase in the price of its most advanced AI accelerators. The company was given the opportunity to revise prices due to the rapid growth in demand, which currently exceeds available supply.
The shortage formed against the backdrop of large-scale construction of data centers and increased investment by Chinese technology companies in their own artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Huawei became a key domestic supplier of such computing power in China. Additional demand for its products is supported by restrictions on Chinese companies' access to the most advanced American processors and Beijing's desire to reduce dependence on Nvidia and other foreign manufacturers.
Huawei's main product in this market in 2026 became the Ascend 950 series. The company brought the first processor of the generation, Ascend 950PR, to market in the first quarter. It is primarily focused on processing requests from artificial intelligence models and recommendation systems.
Demand for this model already exceeded Huawei's expectations. According to Financial Times, Chinese technology companies placed large orders for Ascend 950PR, and the bulk of the orders for AI processors received by Huawei in 2026 was for this model.
Against this backdrop, Huawei expects to receive about $12 billion in revenue from sales of AI chips in 2026, compared to $7.5 billion a year earlier. Thus, this business of the company could grow by at least 60% in a year.
Huawei is simultaneously accelerating the renewal of its lineup. The company plans to deliver Ascend 950DT, designed in particular for training AI models, in the fourth quarter of 2026. Ascend 960 is planned for the end of 2027, and Ascend 970 - for the end of 2028.
Huawei says it intends to update its generations of AI chips about once a year and double computing power with each new generation.
Thus, the 60% price increase indicates not only rising production costs, but also a strengthening of Huawei's position in the Chinese AI equipment market: the largest local developers and data center operators still have a limited choice of suppliers of advanced accelerators.
