Huawei Technologies, a Shenzhen-based telecom and computing company, unveiled its Ascend 960 SuperPoD computing cluster and an upgraded UnifiedBus interconnect at Huawei Connect 2026 in Shanghai.

The company said the system uses near-packaged optics and its Hi-ONE optical system to connect as many as 4,000 processors in a single SuperPoD.

Huawei seeks to build AI systems despite US semiconductor-related restrictions.

Near-packaged optics is generally viewed as a step toward co-packaged optics that can cut power use and support denser, higher-bandwidth links than pluggable connections.

Huawei’s claim of connecting up to 4,000 processors puts the system in the range of large AI clusters.

Nvidia said NVLink-based systems can scale to thousands of graphics processing units in a single cluster.

The launch comes as US export controls apply to advanced semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and certain high-performance computing items designed or marketed for data-center and AI use.

🔗 Source: South China Morning Post

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