Huawei’s AI Chip Revenue Predicted to Skyrocket by 60% to $12 Billion by 2026
Chinese technology behemoth, Huawei, forecasts a surge in its artificial intelligence chip revenue to an estimated $12 billion in 2026. This marks a significant 60% leap from $7.5 billion in 2025, as reported by the Financial Times. The key driver behind this exponential growth is the escalating domestic demand, with Chinese companies exploring alternatives to Western chipmakers in light of the ongoing U.S. export restrictions.
The projected revenue boost is primarily due to robust orders for Huawei’s Ascend 950PR processor, which commenced mass production in March 2026. The processor has already bagged the lion’s share of orders for the year. Huawei aims to ship around 750,000 units of the 950PR chip, with full-scale shipments slated for the latter half of 2026. Additionally, Huawei plans to unveil an upgraded version, the Ascend 950DT, in the fourth quarter to further consolidate its standing in China’s fiercely competitive AI chip market.
The release of DeepSeek V4 in April 2026 served as a significant catalyst for this growth. The software was specifically optimized to run on Huawei’s Ascend chips instead of Nvidia hardware. Industry pundits predict that Huawei could seize over 50% of China’s high-end cloud AI accelerator market in 2026, while Nvidia’s share could plummet to a mere 8% under the current export restrictions. However, hurdles such as limited availability of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and wider supply chain constraints could potentially affect production capacity.
Source: www.asiabusinessoutlook.com