In the past two days, Nvidia President and CEO Jensen Huang's remarks have sparked widespread attention and heated discussions in the technology community. He said in an interview after attending a congressional event that China and the United States are very close in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) development, with a gap of only 0.3 percent, and called Huawei one of the strongest technology companies in the world. This view not only highlights China's rapid development momentum in the field of AI, but also adds new highlights to the global AI competition landscape.
1.What makes Huang praise Huawei?
Huang's praise for Huawei is no accident. From a technical perspective, Huawei has demonstrated strong capabilities in computing technology, network technology, and software capabilities, and has all the necessary capabilities to advance the development of artificial intelligence. Taking Huawei's Ascend 910B chip as an example, its computing power can reach 320 TFLOPS (FP16), and through the tensor parallel optimization of the da Vinci architecture, the actual training efficiency can reach 60%-70% of that of the NVIDIA H100. Huawei's MindSpore accounts for more than 15% of the global AI framework downloads, especially in the field of scientific research, where its features such as automatic differentiation and dynamic graph execution are well received, accounting for 35% of the total number of downloads. In addition, HUAWEI CLOUD AI services cover 10 major industries, and the number of Ascend community developers exceeds 1.8 million, forming a closed-loop ecosystem of government, industry, academia, research and application. These tangible technical achievements and data strongly support Huang's high opinion of Huawei.
Huawei's rise in the AI field is inseparable from its long-term emphasis on R&D and huge investment. According to the 2024 annual report, Huawei's R&D investment was 233.7 billion yuan, accounting for 26.4% of its sales revenue, and the cumulative R&D expenditure in the past decade exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan. Such a large-scale R&D investment provides a solid guarantee for Huawei's AI technology innovation and application expansion, enabling it to stand out from the fierce global competition.
Pictured: Huang calls Huawei one of the world's strongest technology companies
2.How close is the level of AI development between China and the United States?
Huang pointed out that China and the United States are very close in the field of AI development, and this view is supported by a lot of data and facts. In terms of scientific research talents, half of the world's researchers in the field of artificial intelligence are Chinese, and all AI labs in the United States have a large number of Chinese researchers participating. According to research by Macro Polo, a think tank affiliated with the Paulson Institute, 47% of the world's top AI researchers have graduated from Chinese universities, far more than the 18% in the United States. Tsinghua University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other institutions rank among the top in the world in terms of the number of AI papers and high-citation papers. In terms of technology application, China has achieved local leadership in the fields of recommendation algorithms (such as TikTok), multimodal large models (such as DeepSeek), and AI+ manufacturing (such as industrial visual inspection). According to a 2025 report by Stanford University, the performance gap between the top AI models in China and the United States has narrowed significantly to 0.3% from 17.5% in 2023. This data fully shows that China's rapid development and remarkable progress in the field of AI have formed a certain competitive situation with the United States.
However, despite the significant progress made in the field of AI in China, there are still some differences compared to the United States. In the AI chip market, NVIDIA's A100/H100 chips still account for 80% of the market share of data centers, and the United States as a whole also accounts for more than 60% of the global AI computing power. The United States still has certain technological advantages in AI chip architecture design and manufacturing process, which makes it a leading position in the field of AI hardware. However, from the perspective of the overall development trend, China's catch-up pace is accelerating, and the rapid narrowing of the AI gap between China and the United States indicates that the global AI competition pattern is undergoing profound changes.
Pictured: Huang believes the AI gap between China and the U.S. is small
3.The strategic considerations behind Huang's remarks
Huang's remarks reflect not only his observations of the current AI competitive landscape, but also Nvidia's business and strategic considerations. On the one hand, China is one of the world's largest consumer markets and an important market for NVIDIA. Huang has said that as a company that has been deeply involved in the Chinese market for 30 years, NVIDIA and the Chinese market have grown together and achieved mutual success. The successful experience of the Chinese market has driven it to continuously increase its R&D investment, and the in-depth cooperation with Chinese enterprises has also made it grow into a more competitive international enterprise. Therefore, Huang emphasized that the similarity of AI levels between China and the United States and Huawei's strength, to a certain extent, is also seeking rationality and support for NVIDIA to continue to cultivate the Chinese market, hoping to further strengthen NVIDIA's position in the Chinese market and expand its business space.
On the other hand, under the influence of geopolitical factors, the U.S. government has imposed a series of restrictions on the export of AI technology and chips to China, which has brought certain challenges to NVIDIA's business development. Huang wants the administration to change regulations restricting the export of AI technology from the United States to the rest of the world so that American companies can better take advantage of future opportunities. His remarks are aimed at calling on the U.S. government to re-examine relevant export control policies and avoid excessive restrictions that harm the interests of U.S. companies, and also reflect NVIDIA's desire to seek more room for development in the global competition of AI, trying to find a balance between China and the United States to maximize its own business interests.
4.AI Competition: Cooperation and Game in the Protracted War
Huang's emphasis on competition in AI is a "long-term battle" that cannot be won quickly, revealing the nature of AI competition. The development of AI technology involves many complex factors, including scientific research investment, talent training, technological innovation, industrial application, policy support, etc., which requires long-term accumulation and continuous efforts. In this process, enterprises and scientific research institutions in China and the United States are constantly exploring and innovating to improve their technological level and competitiveness.
Although China and the United States are competing in the field of AI, they are not completely opposed, and there is still room and possibility for cooperation. For example, the two sides can cooperate in basic research, talent training, and the formulation of technical standards to jointly promote the development and application of AI technology. However, due to the huge strategic value and commercial benefits of AI technology, the game between the two countries in this field will continue for a long time. While the United States has an advantage in the field of AI chips and other hardware, it is also constantly strengthening the technological blockade of China; Chinese companies are constantly increasing their independent research and development efforts, striving to break through technological bottlenecks, and at the same time giving full play to their own advantages in AI application scenarios and market expansion, forming a certain competitive situation with American companies.
5.Conclusion
Nvidia's Jensen Huang said that the gap between China and the United States is only 0.3%, and believes that Huawei is one of the strongest technology companies in the world, which provides us with an important perspective to observe the global AI competition landscape and technology development trends. Huawei's strength is a testament to China's rise in AI, and the narrowing of the gap between China and the United States in AI development reflects profound changes in the global technology landscape. In the future AI competition, enterprises and institutions from all over the world need to uphold an open and cooperative attitude, continue to learn and progress in the competition, and jointly promote AI technology to create greater value for the development of human society. At the same time, we should also realize that the development of AI technology is not only a competition between technology and business, but also involves social, ethical, legal and other factors, and requires global joint efforts to ensure the healthy and sustainable development of AI technology and bring more benefits to mankind.
In the semiconductor industry, this view and trend is particularly noteworthy. As a leader in the global semiconductor industry, NVIDIA's layout and development in the field of AI chips plays an important leading role in the entire industry. As a representative of Chinese technology companies, Huawei's rise in the AI field has also injected new vitality and impetus into the domestic semiconductor industry. In the future, as the competition and cooperation between China and the United States in the field of AI continue to deepen, the global semiconductor industry will face more opportunities and challenges, and we look forward to seeing more innovations emerge to push the entire industry to new heights.
