Huawei Bids for Egyptian AI Data Center Project with Ascend 950 Chips
Huawei has submitted a bid for an Egyptian government AI data center project, proposing to export at least 1,408 Ascend 950 chips for AI training and 600 chips for inference. The proposal includes a 12-month infrastructure construction plan and involves collaboration with iFlytek. If successful, this project would mark Huawei's first publicly confirmed export of its Ascend AI accelerators in over a year, signaling its expansion into the Middle East and African AI infrastructure markets. It also highlights the growing geopolitical competition between the US and China over global AI infrastructure. The bid includes a "one screen for the whole city" solution featuring vehicle and person recognition, situational awareness, and national database integration. This comes amid US export restrictions implemented in 2023 that require Washington's approval for shipping certain AI chips to Egypt.
## BACKGROUND
The Ascend 950 is Huawei's flagship AI accelerator built on the Da Vinci 3.0 architecture, delivering 1.56 PFLOPS of FP4 compute performance. Egypt is actively expanding its AI capabilities under its second national AI strategy, aiming for AI to contribute 7.7% to its GDP by 2030. Meanwhile, the US has been heavily investing in Middle Eastern AI markets like the UAE and Saudi Arabia to counter Chinese influence.