China’s AI chip market is dominated by Huawei , but that’s mainly due to NVIDIA’s lack of presence in the region, not due to the company’s technological prowess. However, a new report states that the former Chinese smartphone giant plans to adopt glass substrates much sooner, making it a global player that could challenge other entities and slowly tilt the leadership race towards China.
A report from ETNews claims that Huawei is working with its domestic supply chain and has drawn a roadmap to begin glass substrate mass production in 2027. Some of these manufacturers include BOE and Visionox, along with importing key materials from South Korean suppliers. If Huawei’s proposed plans go accordingly, the company could kick off mass production in 2027, putting it an entire year ahead of Samsung and other rivals, which reportedly plan to begin similar glass substrate production in 2028.
Given that the AI chip market share has NVIDIA written all over it, Huawei needs a differentiating factor to gain any technological advantage. The company might hold bragging rights over its home turf, but the lack of competition makes this victory a hollow one. Introducing glass substrates to AI chips will enable Huawei to obtain denser 3D chip stacking, and with glass providing an extremely flat surface, there is less chance of warpage during high-temperature manufacturing, which will increase yields.
The use of glass substrates will also reduce current leakage, improving power efficiency and enabling faster data rates. This specific property is what will enable Huawei’s AI chips to achieve better computing capabilities, which is essential for training and running beefy LLMs. In the absence of EUV machinery, Huawei probably believes that the adoption of glass substrates is an economically viable solution to improve competitiveness and establish a market outside of China.
Sure, the U.S. trade sanctions might create some resistance to Huawei’s plans, but the increased competitiveness and lower-pricing approach could encourage AI customers to take a chance. After all, we’ve reported that data centers are looking for ways to reduce power draw, which is why they’ve gravitated toward the SOCAMM2 form factor, which houses the faster, less power-hungry LPDDR5X DRAM chips. Let us keep our fingers crossed and see whether Huawei’s plans come to fruition.
News Source: ETNews
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