Moore Threads unveils new AI chips after IPO
CHINA RIVAL:
The chips are positioned to compete with Nvidia’s Hopper and Blackwell products and would enable clusters connecting more than 100,000 chips
Moore Threads Technology Co (摩爾線程) introduced a new generation of chips aimed at reducing artificial intelligence (AI) developers’ dependence on Nvidia Corp’s hardware, just weeks after pulling off one of the most successful Chinese initial public offerings (IPOs) in years.
“These products will significantly enhance world-class computing speed and capabilities that all developers aspire to,” Moore Threads CEO Zhang Jianzhong (張建中), a former Nvidia executive, said on Saturday at a company event in Beijing. “We hope they can meet the needs of more developers in China so that you no longer need to wait for advanced foreign products.”
Chinese chipmakers are in the spotlight as Beijing authorities push forward with efforts to develop a world-class semiconductor sector. Investors are betting that national champions would emerge to challenge Nvidia, whose most-advanced chips are blocked by the US from being sold to China.
Photo: Bloomberg
Moore Threads’ architecture, named Huagang (花港), would elevate computational density by 50 percent and improve energy efficiency by 10 times, Zhang said.
Chips based on the new architecture would be named Huashan and be positioned to compete with Nvidia’s Hopper and Blackwell products, he said.
The new technology, slated for mass production from next year, would enable clusters connecting more than 100,000 chips for AI training at data centers, Zhang added.
Zhang founded his own company in 2020 after spending 14 years at Nvidia. Moore Threads started out earning revenue from gaming and visual rendering chips before pivoting to the accelerators vital to developing and running AI software.
The chipmaker also announced an update to its proprietary computing platform, MUSA, at the event, positioning it as an equivalent to Nvidia’s CUDA.
Moore Threads, which was blacklisted by the US in 2023, unveiled servers capable of linking tens of thousands of AI chips.
Its announcement comes the same month it quintupled on its debut in Shanghai. Days later, domestic rival MetaX Integrated Circuits Co (沐曦) also rose several-fold on its first day.
