Huawei pitches Egypt on building AI data centers for military and surveillance use

Huawei Technologies Co. has submitted a proposal to the Egyptian government to build artificial intelligence data centers for military, surveillance, and public sector use. The 12-month plan involves exporting 1,408 Ascend 950-series chips for training and 600 chips for inference clusters. The bid has alarmed Washington, where United States officials are working to assemble a counteroffer, highlighting the growing technology competition between the US and China.

Huawei Egypt data center bid

• ▪Huawei Technologies Co. submitted a proposal to the Egyptian government to build artificial intelligence data centers
• ▪Huawei Technologies Co. proposed a 12-month timeline to construct the artificial intelligence data center infrastructure in Egypt

Ascend chip export specifications

• ▪Huawei Technologies Co. proposed exporting 1,408 of its top-end Ascend 950-series chips to Egypt for an artificial intelligence training cloud
• ▪Huawei Technologies Co. proposed exporting 600 additional chips, consisting of either Ascend 950-series or earlier 910B models, to Egypt for two inference clusters

Military surveillance infrastructure use

• ▪Huawei Technologies Co. pitched the artificial intelligence data centers to the Egyptian government for military, surveillance, and other public sector applications
• ▪The artificial intelligence infrastructure proposed by Huawei Technologies Co. in Egypt includes two inference clusters to run artificial intelligence models and an artificial intelligence training cloud

US counteroffer efforts

• ▪United States officials in Washington are working to assemble a counteroffer to Huawei Technologies Co.'s bid in Egypt
• ▪Huawei Technologies Co.'s bid to build artificial intelligence data centers in Egypt has drawn alarm among United States officials in Washington

China-US technology competition

• ▪Huawei Technologies Co.'s bid in Egypt demonstrates the Chinese company's global chip ambitions as China's biggest competitor to Nvidia Corporation
• ▪The bid by Huawei Technologies Co. to build artificial intelligence data centers in Egypt serves as a test of United States technology diplomacy

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