Where is Nvidia? Chinese rivals take the limelight at major AI event in Shanghai

BEIJING — Less than two weeks after Nvidia

CEO Jensen Huang’s high-profile visit to Beijing, the U.S. chipmaker was conspicuous by its absence at China’s biggest AI event of the year.

Despite renewed hopes this month of selling its less advanced H20 chips to China again, Nvidia didn’t have a booth at the World AI Conference that opened Saturday in Shanghai. The company declined CNBC’s request for comment.

In contrast, Nvidia’s China rival, Huawei, had a large display — focused on its Ascend AI chips — near the venue entrance. Huang has called Huawei “one of the most formidable technology companies in the world,” while warning that it could replace Nvidia in China if U.S. sticks with its export curbs on Beijing.

The telecoms giant showed off for the first time the hardware for its computing system that links 384 Ascend chips together to power AI model training and use. Huawei is marketing the product as “Atlas 900 A3 SuperPoD.”