Page 31 - SAMENA Trends - August 2019

REGIONAL & MEMBERS UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

Huawei Pushes AI Innovation with Ascend 910

Release

Huawei launched what it claims is the which is part of the company’s series of consumption than originally planned.
world’s most powerful AI processor – the Ascend-Max chipsets, marks a new stage “Without a doubt, it has more computing
Ascend 910 – as well as an AI computing in its AI strategy, which it first announced power than any other AI processor in
framework called MindSpore designed in October 2018. Since then, he said the the world.” Speaking at a press event in
to simplify and speed up AI application company has made steady progress, Shenzhen, Xu said Huawei will continue
development. Eric Xu, Huawei’s rotating with the Ascend 910 delivering on its investing in AI processors to deliver
Chairman, said the release of the processor, performance goals with much lower power more abundant, affordable and adaptable
computing power that meets the needs of
a broad range of applications, including
edge computing and on-vehicle computing
for autonomous driving. AI computing
frameworks are critical to speeding up
AI application development, making AI
applications more accessible and ensuring
privacy protection, the company said in a
statement. The processor was developed
for use in AI model training. The company
said the combination of the Ascend 910
and MindSpore will enable about two-
times faster training of AI models than
other mainstream training cards using
Google’s TensorFlow. The new processor
will be available in China in September and
overseas in Q1 2020. MindSpore will go
open-source in January.

Huawei Boss Sees Brighter Future Than Feared

The outlook for Huawei’s smartphone business is not as the US, Australia and some countries in Europe. The third is the
pessimistic as founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei forecast back in late-comers in countries where 4G hasn’t been fully developed.
June, rotating chairman Eric Xu revealed, noting the prediction He took a swipe at Europe, saying it continues “to talk about 5G”
was a worst-case scenario, with the situation now much better while in China “we are doing it”.
than expected. However, Xu said its handset business, depending
on trade issues, could still be reduced by as much as $10 billion.
IDC data showed Huawei increased its market share in the second
quarter as its shipments increased 8.3 per cent to 58.7 million
units in a falling global market. In China the vendor boosted its
market share by nearly 10 percentage points. Xu also noted that
despite the latest US export ban reprieve, it is unlikely Huawei
will be relieved of the restrictions in the long term. “We know
we have to be prepared,” he admitted, and the temporary permit
won’t influence its planned product roadmap. On the sidelines
of the event a Huawei representative also confirmed that its 5G
gear has been re-engineered to not be subject to any US trade
restrictions. Xu explained that despite a global consensus on the
need for 5G, operators are taking three very different approaches.
The first wave – South Korea and China – are moving ahead
with large-scale deployments. The second group is only focused
on small-scale rollouts for “branding purposes” and includes

31 AUGUST 2019