Tech war: TSMC chips found in Huawei’s AI processors open firms to fresh scrutiny

TSMC has denied that it sold chips to Huawei after TechInsights found that Huawei’s Ascend 910B had components from the Taiwanese firm

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A tear-down analysis by TechInsights found that some of the dies in Huawei’s Ascend 910B AI processor came from TSMC, raising questions about sanctions violations. Photo: Handout

Published: 9:00pm, 23 Oct 2024Updated: 6:14pm, 24 Oct 2024

A Canadian firm’s teardown report of an artificial intelligence (AI) offering by Huawei Technologies has raised fresh questions about whether the Chinese tech giant skirted US sanctions by using a chip made by the world’s most advanced fab, a development that could lead to further scrutiny.

TechInsights, an Ottawa-based semiconductor industry research firm, published the report last week detailing its teardown of Huawei’s most popular AI processor, the Ascend 910B. The firm attempted to identify the chip components known as dies, which contain the integrated circuits, and their manufacturers. The report was made available to subscribers only.

A key finding of the report is that components of the 910B, which is widely used in Chinese data centres, were produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

TSMC’s headquarters in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on July 5, 2023. The company says it has not sold chips to Huawei since September 2020. Photo: AFP

“TSMC is a law-abiding company, and we are committed to complying with all applicable rules and regulations, including applicable export controls. In compliance with the regulatory requirements, TSMC has not supplied to Huawei since mid-September 2020,” the Taiwanese chip maker said in a statement on Wednesday. “We proactively communicated with the US Commerce Department regarding the matter in the report. We are not aware of TSMC being the subject of any investigation at this time.”

“Huawei has not produced any chips via TSMC since the US Department of Commerce implemented its amended foreign direct product rule that targeted Huawei in 2020,” Huawei said in a statement on Wednesday.

Huawei has emerged as China’s national champion in the country’s self-sufficiency drive to cut its reliance on American technology. The Shenzhen-based tech giant had already been designing its own chips under its HiSilicon subsidiary when it was sanctioned in 2019, and it ramped up self-sufficiency efforts after US restrictions were expanded in 2020.

Since then, Huawei has remained guarded about its chip capabilities, although it has become a leading alternative to Nvidia as a provider of AI chips to Chinese customers. Huawei has said the Ascend 910B is on par with Nvidia’s A100 chip, and multiple industries have adopted the Chinese chip.