Huawei launches Ascend 960 SuperNode with doubled performance, accelerates chip roadmap to 2027
At Huawei Connect 2026 in Shanghai, Vice Chairman Wang Tao announced the Ascend 960 SuperNode, the industry’s first using Near-Packaged Optics technology, with doubled performance. The Ascend 960DT will launch in Q1 2027, three quarters early, and the 960PR in Q3 2027. Huawei plans annual releases through 2029, including the Ascend 970 and 980. The SuperNode supports up to 4,096 cards, 8 EFLOPS FP8 computing power, and 1 PB HBM capacity.
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Cross-source coverage
Common ground
- Huawei has made real engineering progress under severe export controls, producing competitive chips like the Kirin 9000S.
- The Ascend 960 supernode supporting 10 trillion parameter models is a notable system-level achievement.
- China's whole-of-nation approach has driven significant investment and development in domestic semiconductor alternatives.
- The accelerated chip timeline serves as a strategic signal to maintain ecosystem confidence among partners and investors.
Points of contention
- The Eastern Agent sees the accelerated timeline as proof of a strategic breakthrough, while the Neutral Agent views it as a strategic announcement without confirmed delivery.
- The Eastern Agent argues that export controls act as catalysts for innovation, but the Neutral Agent says they force costly workarounds that don't close the performance gap.
- The Eastern Agent treats the Kirin 9000S as a success story of resilience, while the Neutral Agent points out it only matched 2020-level chips in 2023, showing a stable lag.
- The Eastern Agent cites market cap as evidence of investor confidence, but the Neutral Agent dismisses it as policy-driven speculation prone to bubbles.
Blind spots
- Both sides focus heavily on chip-level metrics but underplay how system-level innovations like advanced packaging and scale-out architectures could reshape AI competition.
- The debate lacks discussion of the actual cost, power consumption, and real-world training efficiency of Huawei's chips compared to NVIDIA's equivalents.
- Neither side fully addresses the possibility that Huawei's roadmap might be intentionally optimistic to influence policy or investor behavior, not just technical reality.
WorldAttention’s read
The debate reveals a fundamental clash between viewing Huawei's accelerated chip roadmap as a genuine strategic breakthrough versus a strategic signal to maintain ecosystem confidence. While both sides agree that Huawei has made impressive progress under severe export controls, they disagree on whether this progress represents closing the gap with Western leaders or merely surviving with costly workarounds. The Eastern Agent emphasizes resilience and national strategy, while the Neutral Agent insists on waiting for independent benchmarks before treating announcements as deliveries. Ultimately, the real test will come in 2027 when production hardware is available for independent verification, but the discussion highlights how geopolitical pressures are reshaping the global AI chip landscape in ways that go beyond pure technical metrics.
Reporting timeline
Huawei Unveils Ascend 960 Supernode; AI Chip Stocks Surge on Policy and Demand Optimism
On September 18, A-share indices rose, reigniting the computing hardware sector, with AI chip stocks like Fudan Microelectronics and Hygon Information gaining attention. At the Huawei Connect 2026 conference on September 17, Huawei released the Ascend 960 supernode, the world's first to adopt Near-Packaged Optics (NPO) technology, featuring FP8 computing power of 8 EFLOPS and HBM capacity up to 1 PB. Huawei Vice Chairman Wang Tao stated the Ascend 960DT will launch in Q1 2027, three quarters early, with annual releases planned through 2029. Separately, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang noted the bottleneck is NVIDIA's chip production capacity, not demand; NVIDIA projected ~70% revenue growth for fiscal year ending January 2028, reaching about $673 billion. China's MIIT and NDRC issued guidelines to accelerate AI chip and cloud training equipment development. Bank of America Securities raised its 2030 global semiconductor forecast. According to East Money, 39 A-share AI chip concept stocks have a combined market cap of ~2.76 trillion yuan. Institutions forecast Fudan Microelectronics' net profit may surge 4.3x year-on-year and Cambricon's by over 1.7x this year.
Read sourceHuawei Announces Ascend 960 AI Chip Launching Early With Doubled Performance
At Huawei Connect 2026 on September 17, Huawei's rotating chairman Wang Tao outlined the company's AI strategy, centered on computing power through hardware monetization and an open-source ecosystem. He officially launched the Ascend 960 super node, described as the world's first to apply NPO technology, capable of supporting models with up to 10 trillion parameters. Wang Tao stated that over 1,000 Ascend super nodes have been deployed and the Ascend 950 super node is in commercial deployment. Regarding AI chips, he said the Ascend 960 chip is ready ahead of schedule with doubled performance. The Ascend 960DT is scheduled for release in Q1 2027, three quarters earlier than planned, and the Ascend 960PR in Q3 2027, one quarter earlier. Huawei plans to release a new generation annually, with the Ascend 970 in 2028 and Ascend 980 in 2029.
Read sourceHuawei's Wang Tao Says Ascend 960 Chip to Launch in Q1 2027, Ahead of Schedule
At Huawei Connect 2026, Huawei's rotating chairman Wang Tao announced that the Ascend 960 chip is ready ahead of schedule, delivering a doubling in performance. The Ascend 960DT will be released in Q1 2027, three quarters earlier than originally planned, while the Ascend 960PR will follow in Q3 2027, one quarter ahead of schedule. Wang Tao also outlined Huawei's future roadmap, stating the company will maintain an annual release cadence, with the Ascend 970 scheduled for 2028 and the Ascend 980 for 2029. The announcement was reported by Jin10 Data on September 17.
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Huawei's Wang Tao Announces Ascend 960 Chip Launch Moved Up to Early 2027
At Huawei Connect 2026, Huawei Rotating Chairman Wang Tao announced that the Ascend 960 chip is ready ahead of schedule with a doubling in performance. The Ascend 960DT will be released in Q1 2027, three quarters earlier than originally planned, and the Ascend 960PR will follow in Q3 2027, one quarter earlier than planned. Wang Tao stated that Huawei will maintain an annual evolution cadence, with the Ascend 970 scheduled for 2028 and the Ascend 980 for 2029. The report was published by the STAR Market Daily on the 17th.
Read sourceHuawei Rotating Chairman Wang Tao Announces 960DT Product and Ascend 960PR Chip Launch Timelines
Huawei Rotating Chairman Wang Tao has announced that the company will launch the 960DT product in the first quarter of 2027, followed by the Ascend 960PR chip in the third quarter of 2027. The statement, reported by financial data platform Jin10, provides a clear product roadmap for Huawei's hardware offerings. The Ascend 960PR chip is part of Huawei's Ascend series, which is central to the company's AI computing strategy. The announcement outlines specific launch timelines for these products, indicating Huawei's planned advancements in its technology portfolio over the next several years. No further details on the specifications or applications of the 960DT product or the Ascend 960PR chip were provided in the source item.
Huawei Unveils Ascend 960 Supernode, Advances AI Chip Launch Schedule at Connect 2026
At the Huawei Connect 2026 conference in Shanghai, Huawei unveiled the industry's first Ascend 960 supernode using Near-Packaged Optics (NPO) technology, upgraded its Kunpeng supernodes, and launched the OceanStor M900 AI memory storage system. Wang Tao, Huawei's Vice Chairman and Rotating Chairman, stated that computing power is central to Huawei's AI strategy and that the pace of AI transformation exceeds any previous technological revolution. He noted that large model parameters are approaching 10 trillion and are expected to exceed 100 trillion by 2030. Huawei announced that the Ascend 960 chip's R&D progress has exceeded expectations, achieving doubled performance. The Ascend 960DT will launch in Q1 2027, three quarters ahead of schedule, and the Ascend 960PR in Q3 2027, one quarter ahead. Huawei plans to maintain a pace of one generation per year, with the Ascend 970 in 2028 and Ascend 980 in 2029. The Ascend 960 supernode features a 4,096-card scale, delivering up to 8 EFLOPS of FP8 computing power and 1 PB of HBM capacity. Huawei also introduced Agentic supernode clusters capable of supporting up to one million cards using the Lingqu UnifiedBus for unified interconnectivity.
Read sourceHuawei Launches Ascend 960 SuperNode, Accelerates AI Chip Roadmap
At the Huawei Connect 2026 conference, Vice Chairman and Rotating Chairman Wang Tao announced the official launch of the Ascend 960 SuperNode, stating that the development of the Ascend 960 chip has exceeded expectations. The chip, based on the Lingqu architecture, is the industry's first SuperNode using NPO (Near-Packaged Optics) technology, achieving a doubling in performance. The 960DT model is ready three quarters ahead of schedule, arriving in Q1 2027, and the 960PR is ready one quarter ahead, arriving in Q3 2027. Huawei plans to release the Ascend 970 and 980 chips in 2028 and 2029, continuing an annual evolution rhythm. The Ascend 960 SuperNode supports up to 4,096 cards, providing 8E FP8 computing power and 1PB HBM capacity. Wang Tao also introduced the Hi-ONE optical interconnect product, the Kunpeng SuperNode, and the OceanStor M900 AI memory storage. He outlined seven strategic initiatives focusing on AI infrastructure, including adhering to an open-source ecosystem and providing flexible computing power solutions.
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