Chinese semiconductor firm Cambricon posted record profit in the first half of the year underscoring how local challengers to Nvidia are gaining traction as Beijing looks to boost its domestic industry.
Cambricon is among a plethora of companies in China that are vying to be an alternative to American giant Nvidia when it comes to providing the chips required to train and run artificial intelligence applications and models.
In the first half of the year, Cambricon said revenue surged more than 4,000% year-on-year to 2.88 billion Chinese yuan ($402.7 million) and net profit hit a record 1.04 billion yuan. The numbers remain small when compared to Nvidia which reported $44 billion of revenue in its February to April quarter. The tech giant is due to report its fiscal second-quarter earnings later today.
Still, Cambricon's surge in revenue highlights how tech companies in China are searching for potential alternatives to Nvidia, given the continuous threat that they could be cut off from American technology.
Nvidia was blocked earlier this year from selling its pared back H20 chip to China. It has since been allowed to resume exports to China but must share 15% of its revenue from sales to the country with the U.S government.
Meanwhile, China has reportedly been discouraging local firms to buy Nvidia's H20 chips.