Banned in the U.S. and Europe, Huawei aims for the developing AI (restofworld.org)

Barred from many Western markets by U.S.-led restrictions, Huawei is pivoting aggressively to developing countries to grow its cloud and AI business, selling an integrated stack that includes AI chips (notably the Ascend series such as the 910B), large language models (including an Arabic LLM), data-center hardware and cooling/network solutions, and machine-learning frameworks. The company has quietly expanded cloud coverage and built government and university data centers in Algeria, the Philippines, Egypt, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Pakistan and proposed sites like Nepal, leveraging low prices and bundled services to win customers that larger Western firms have largely left untapped. The shift matters because it accelerates a geopolitical bifurcation of the global AI stack: U.S. policy and export controls (and recent guidance warning about using Huawei’s Ascend chips) aim to lock in market share for American chip designers and hyperscalers, while China’s push for self-reliance drives domestic chip and model development. The global AI infrastructure market could top $200 billion annually by 2028, and Huawei’s reach — supplemented by Alibaba and Tencent’s overseas moves and training programs — gives it soft power in the Global South. But limited access to large, diverse customers may constrain Huawei’s innovation compared with incumbents like Nvidia, illustrating the trade-off between market access, geopolitical risk, and technological advancement.