The AI Training Chip Tencent Has an Eye On

It is not news that China wants a rich, native, diverse semiconductor ecosystem to feed its largest consumers of compute. From supercomputing systems to those that power the country's largest online social and retail platforms, there is a close reckoning for U.S.-based chipmakers. China's top supercomputers, including the Sunway TaihuLight machine or the mighty Tianhe-2A are packed with native technologies, from chips to interconnects and its social media giants, including Alibaba and Baidu are already in production with their own devices for AI training and inference at massive scale. One of the China's hyperscalers, Tencent, has yet to roll out its own chips but it's worth noting they have invested mightily in Shanghai-based Enflame, which will soon be releasing its first-generation AI training devices, which have been in development since 2018. Over the last three years, Enflame has raised close to $500 million with Tencent leading the charge.