Huawei rotating chairman Wang Tao announced at the 2026 Huawei Connect conference that the Ascend 960 chip series will launch ahead of schedule. The company aims to double the performance of these new processors compared to previous generations.
The Ascend 960DT model is now scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2027, which is three quarters earlier than originally planned. Meanwhile, the Ascend 960PR version is set to arrive in the third quarter of 2027, marking a one-quarter acceleration in the development timeline.
Huawei intends to maintain a yearly release cycle for its hardware roadmap. Following the 960 series, the company plans to launch the Ascend 970 in 2028 and the Ascend 980 in 2029. This strategy follows the 2025 introduction of the Ascend 950 architecture, which featured proprietary HBM and improved bandwidth.
The Ascend 950 architecture, unveiled in 2025, introduced support for low-precision data formats and increased vector computing power. The 950PR variant focuses on inference prefill and recommendation performance using HiBL 1.0 memory, while the 950DT variant enhances decoding capabilities, training efficiency, and memory bandwidth.
