China focuses on large language models in the field of artificial intelligence.
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Chinese semiconductor companies released record profits in the first half of the year, highlighting how local challengers Nvidia As Beijing hopes to promote its domestic industries, people are attracting attention.
Cambridge is one of many Chinese companies, and is competing for alternatives to the U.S. giant Nvidia when it comes to providing the chips needed to train and run AI applications and models.
Cambricon said that in the first half of this year, revenue rose more than 4 million to 2.88 billion yuan (US$402.7 million), and net profit reached a record 1.04 billion yuan. Compared to NVIDIA, the figure earned $44 billion in the February-April quarter. The technology giant will report its second-quarter fiscal earnings later today.
Still, Cambridge’s revenue surge highlights how Chinese tech companies look for potential alternatives to NVIDIA, given that they can continually differentiate it from American technology.
NVIDIA was blocked earlier this year and sold its cut H20 chips to China. It has since been allowed to resume exports to China, but must share 15% of its revenue from sales with the U.S. government.
Meanwhile, China has been reportedly blocking local companies from purchasing NVIDIA's H20 chips.
Chinese tech giants have been using local chips and the NVIDIA hardware they are able to master, which is helping companies like Cambridge.
According to S&P Capital IQ, Cambridge stock has more than doubled this year and has increased its market cap by $40 billion. The total value of the company is approximately $80 billion.
Nvidia's strength not only exists in its hardware, but also involves software developers are used to using. Cambridge said on Wednesday it is also improving its software products and is developing the next-generation hardware.
Nevertheless, China's NVIDIA competitors faced many obstacles when defeating the game. Their technology remains far behind NVIDIA's technology, and the long-term prospects look more challenging as export controls lift China off state-of-the-art chip manufacturing technology, thus preventing advances in China's domestic AI bargaining chip work.