Baidu-Backed Kunlunxin Secures Major China Mobile AI Chip Orders

Chinese chip design company Kunlunxin, majority-owned by Baidu, has announced that it has secured chip orders worth over one billion yuan (around $139 million) from China Mobile for its artificial intelligence projects. The development comes as China accelerates efforts to build domestic alternatives to Nvidia’s widely used AI chips amid increasing global restrictions.

According to Kunlunxin, the company will supply AI processors that are compatible with Nvidia’s CUDA software platform, ensuring that developers can continue to run AI applications with minimal transition challenges. These chips will be delivered to firms such as H3C Technologies and ZTE, both of which are key suppliers to China Mobile.

China Mobile also allocated part of its orders to a Huawei-linked company, which will provide hardware supporting Huawei’s Compute Architecture for Neural Networks (CANN), an equivalent to CUDA. This highlights China’s strategy of diversifying its domestic AI chip ecosystem.

Baidu, which owns 59% of Kunlunxin, has been scaling up its semiconductor business. Earlier this year, the company revealed that it had deployed 30,000 of its third-generation P800 Kunlun chips to power large-scale AI models, showcasing China’s growing capabilities in advanced chip design.

Kunlunxin and Huawei’s Ascend processors remain at the forefront of China’s push to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in the AI chip market.

Source: The Economic Times