Our Malaysian government is seriously considering leaning towards the use of artificial intelligence (AI) chips made by China-based Huawei, in order to further its sovereign AI efforts. It’s a risky move for the nation, especially since it will no doubt anger the US’ Trump administration, more so because of all the restrictions that are currently working against it.
Between A Rock And A Hard Place
According to Bloomberg, the Malaysian government is weighing its option: purchase some of Huawei’s AI hardware, thus furthering its RM2 billion initiative to transform our country into a massive broker in AI datacentres, and give Huawei a much needed boost in its sales revenue of AI chips.
Having said that, the performance of Huawei’s AI chips still don’t come anywhere close to NVIDIA’s own AI accelerators, but the Chinese company has been the alternative to the US-based GPU company, scooping up its market share since the US government put some hefty restrictions on NVIDIA, curtailing which Chinese company can and cannot purchase its hardware.
To be clear, Malaysia’s Prime MInister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, is still mulling over the possibility of purchasing some of Huawei’s AI chips, and as such, no deal has been inked. Should it do so, though, it would mark the first known instance of a foreign government in the current geopolitical climate that has opted for Chinese AI accelerators over US-made ones.
That, in turn, could draw the ire of US President Donald Trump, who has been on a warpath against Huawei that stretches all the way back to his first term as President. But Anwar in the past has said US regulations may pose a challenge to that effort, specifically the US Cloud Act, under which American courts can compel US technology companies to hand over electronic data even if it is stored overseas. Trump signed the Cloud Act into law during his first term.
“I do not consider that law reasonable, but how does one argue with President Trump?”
(Source: The Edge)
