DeepSeek’s New AI Model Will Be a Victory for Huawei

When DeepSeek introduces its next-generation model, likely in the next few weeks, it will mark a milestone in China’s yearslong quest for semiconductor self-sufficiency. That’s because the new model, called V4, will be able to run on the latest chips designed by Huawei Technologies.

And in preparation for V4’s launch, Chinese tech giants, including Alibaba Group, ByteDance and Tencent Holdings, have placed bulk orders for Huawei’s upcoming chip totaling hundreds of thousands of units, according to five people with direct knowledge of the purchase. They want to sell DeepSeek’s new model through their cloud services and integrate it into their AI applications. As a result, the price for the Ascend 950PR—Huawei’s latest design, slated to begin mass production this month—has gone up 20% in recent weeks, according to the five people.