DeepSeek orders 160,000 Huawei Ascend 950DT chips for 1 GW data center

DeepSeek has ordered at least 160,000 Huawei Ascend 950DT chips for its 1 GW data center in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia. The chips will handle inference only — model training still relies on Nvidia hardware because Huawei's software stack is not ready for large-scale distributed training.

• Order covers at least 160,000 Ascend 950DT chips, per Bloomberg report of September 4, 2026
• Ascend 950DT: 144 GB HBM, 4.0 TB/s memory bandwidth, about 111,000 yuan (~$16,000) each
• Deliveries may take over a year due to Huawei's high-bandwidth memory shortage
• Nvidia's China AI chip share is seen falling from 40% in 2025 to ~8% in 2026, Huawei rising to ~50%