DeepSeek Orders 160,000 AI Chips From Huawei

DeepSeek has placed an order for 160,000 AI chips with Huawei, it has been reported. According to a Bloomberg report on the 7th, the Chinese AI company DeepSeek plans to deploy at least 160,000 units of Huawei's next-generation AI accelerator — a chip that rapidly processes AI computations — the "Ascend 950DT," at a data center it is building in Inner Mongolia. These chips are used primarily for "inference," the task by which a trained AI model produces answers.

A forecast has also emerged for the supply of domestically produced AI chips in China. In a report published on the 2nd, J.P. Morgan projected that China's domestic AI chip supply would grow from about 2.1 million units this year to roughly 5 million by 2028. The report also forecast that shipments of Huawei's Ascend chips would climb from around 700,000 units in 2025 to approximately 1.6 million by 2028. It analyzed that as domestic AI semiconductor companies such as Cambricon grow alongside Huawei, the pool of suppliers is diversifying as well.

Against this backdrop, Chinese equipment makers are broadening their business scope itself. Naura, China's largest semiconductor equipment maker, said in its semiannual report that it is extending its technology — previously confined to front-end processes such as etching, deposition and heat treatment — into advanced packaging fields such as hybrid bonding and through-silicon via (TSV) electroplating. AMEC, which built its growth on etching equipment, is heading in a similar direction. The company said it is developing high-aspect-ratio etching technology for 3D NAND and 3D DRAM while preparing equipment related to thin films and TSV, and that over the next five years, through in-house research and development and mergers and acquisitions (M&A), it aims to address more than 60 percent of the advanced integrated-circuit equipment market and more than 70 percent of the advanced packaging equipment market with its product portfolio.

At the 14th China Semiconductor Equipment, Materials and Core Components Exhibition (CSEAC 2026), held recently in Wuxi, the China Electronic Special Purpose Equipment Industry Association (CEPEA) assessed that China's semiconductor industry is moving from "breakthroughs in core technologies" toward "ecosystem building." The idea is that, beyond securing key technologies, the next goal is to complete a domestic ecosystem fully equipped with equipment, materials and components.