Report: DeepSeek to deploy 160k Huawei Ascend 950DT chips in Inner Mongolia for inference

According to Bloomberg and multiple follow-up reports, DeepSeek plans to procure and deploy at least 160,000 Huawei Ascend 950DT chips at its new 1-gigawatt data center in Inner Mongolia. If it materializes, this would be the largest known Huawei AI chip cluster, used to run inference workloads for DeepSeek's own models; training still relies on Nvidia GPUs, with no current plans to switch to Ascend. The report has not been officially confirmed.

Confirmed

• Bloomberg reported that DeepSeek intends to purchase over 160,000 Huawei Ascend chips for deployment at an Inner Mongolia data center, potentially forming the largest Huawei AI chip cluster
• The chip model is the Ascend 950DT, which @ns123abc says is Hopper-class
• The chips will be used for inference only, with training workloads remaining on Nvidia GPUs

Not Yet Confirmed

• The overall report remains unconfirmed officially and is based on leaks/media coverage
• @Hesamation noted that due to shortages of HBM and other memory components plus capacity constraints, manufacturing could take more than a year; DeepSeek wants to buy more, but Huawei's capacity still falls short

Why It Matters

• If the order goes through, it would be one of the largest deployments of domestic Chinese AI chips to date, marking large-scale commercial adoption of the Ascend ecosystem for inference
• The split of "Ascend for inference, Nvidia for training" reflects the gap between domestic chips and Nvidia in high-end training workloads, as well as the practical constraints of Huawei's capacity and the HBM supply chain

2026-09-04 ~ 2026-09-04 · 8 related posts

• [source] DeepSeek wants 160,000 Huawei Ascend chips for massive Inner Mongolia data center — Hesamation · 2026-09-04
• Hesamation adds detail on DeepSeek's 160,000-chip Huawei order — Hesamation · 2026-09-04
• [source] DeepSeek plans 160,000-chip Huawei Ascend 950DT cluster in Inner Mongolia, Bloomberg reports — kimmonismus · 2026-09-04
• [source] DeepSeek reportedly bought 160,000 Huawei Ascend 950DT chips for 1GW Inner Mongolia data center — ns123abc · 2026-09-04
• DeepSeek to deploy at least 160,000 Huawei top accelerators at Inner Mongolia data center — pstAsiatech · 2026-09-04

3 near-duplicate retellings: zephyr_z9 · kimmonismus · ns123abc