4Paradigm Orders Over 1 Billion RMB of Huawei Ascend 950 AI Chips
Enterprise AI provider 4Paradigm has entered into a major agreement to purchase Huawei's domestic Ascend 950 chips worth over 1 billion RMB. The deal aims to boost 4Paradigm's computing capacity to support large language model (LLM) deployments in core sectors like finance and manufacturing. This transaction highlights the accelerating transition of Chinese tech firms toward domestic hardware ecosystems amid global chip supply uncertainties. By proactively building out Ascend 950 infrastructure, 4Paradigm mitigates supply chain risks while scaling up its capacity to deliver on a growing order backlog. 4Paradigm's H1 capital expenditure reached 2.237 billion RMB, bringing its total available compute capacity to 28,000 PFLOPS. This compute expansion is driven by strong business demand, as the company's H1 API revenue surged 860.8% year-over-year alongside a 620% jump in Token calls and a 7 billion RMB order backlog.
## BACKGROUND
4Paradigm is a prominent Hong Kong-listed enterprise AI solutions provider in China specializing in decision-making AI and LLM services. Huawei's Ascend series, including the Ascend 950 processor, serves as China's primary domestic alternative to foreign high-performance GPUs, measured in PFLOPS (quadrillion floating-point operations per second).