NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has publicly acknowledged that Huawei’s AI hardware has now caught up with the best NVIDIA has to offer, confirming for the first time that Huawei’s CloudMatrix cluster is comparable in scale and performance to NVIDIA’s latest Grace Blackwell AI systems.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Huang openly admitted that Huawei’s new CloudMatrix system surpasses previous assumptions and rivals even NVIDIA’s most powerful offerings, stating, “They’ve been moving quite fast… and they’re quite formidable.”
Huang also noted that Huawei’s latest AI chip — believed to be the Ascend 910C — is now comparable to the H200 AI accelerator, the current top-tier chip in NVIDIA’s Hopper lineup. This revelation indicates a significant leap in China’s AI capabilities, especially considering just a year ago, Huawei was thought to be behind NVIDIA’s H100 series.
These comments mark the first official recognition of Huawei’s CloudMatrix performance, and they send a strong signal: China has successfully closed the AI hardware gap with the West. Despite facing stringent U.S. sanctions and export restrictions, Huawei has not only kept pace but now poses a legitimate challenge in the AI space.
Huang emphasized that NVIDIA is effectively being pushed out of the Chinese market due to export limitations, while Huawei continues to expand. “There’s no stopping them,” he admitted, showing how quickly the competitive landscape is shifting.
With Huawei’s rapid rise in AI and computing, the global AI arms race is no longer dominated by a single player — and NVIDIA now faces its most serious competitor yet on home turf.
