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Over the past three months, Huawei has increased the price of its flagship AI accelerator, the Ascend 950DT, by about 60%. According to sources, the cost of a chip Bloombergreaching 250,000 yuan (about $37,300), which is comparable to the pricing policy of Nvidia’s most powerful B200 server GPU.
Image source: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
A key factor behind the shortage and rising costs is the lack of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which is critical for the operation of artificial intelligence systems. The price increase of the Ascend 950DT is also due to the sharp increase in demand for Chinese alternatives to Nvidia products. Huawei representatives told customers that HBM supply constraints directly impact the cost and availability of accelerators. The global shortage of this type of memory has been going on for about a year, affecting even the manufacturer’s high-end smartphones.
Despite production difficulties, China’s big technology companies are still aggressively pursuing orders. DeepSeek therefore involved creating a large cluster in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region in northern China, using at least 160,000 Ascend 950DT accelerators. At the same time, Huawei prioritizes supplying to the largest market players and artificial intelligence infrastructure builders.
The output of 950DT series chips this year is expected to reach hundreds of thousands. The company has not commented on the price list changes and continues to supply accelerators in batches of eight or more. Their final cost depends on the order volume and the procurement of related network equipment.
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