Huawei launches new brand "HoloSens" with Ascend 310 and Kunpeng 920

At the 2019 Huawei Intelligent Security Business Strategy Conference, Huawei launched a new brand "HoloSens" and launched the HoloSens SDC X2382-HL, which is known as the industry's most powerful computing camera, and the HoloSens IVS3800 intelligent video cloud platform.

Let's talk about this camera first. Why is it called the best in the industry? 

This camera is equipped with the Ascend 310 AI chip, which is the industry's most powerful AI SoC (system-on-chip) for edge computing scenarios. It can achieve up to 16Tops of on-site computing power, can realize intelligent 1-to-8, and will support simultaneous recognition of 200 different objects including cars, people, obstacles, and traffic signs.

In addition, another product, the "Intelligent Video Cloud Platform", is equipped with the new Kunpeng 920 chip. According to Huawei's official announcement, the platform is the industry's first fully independent innovative edge video cloud platform from chip to architecture, with performance three times that of mainstream products in the industry and a relatively low price.

The launch of these two new products has undoubtedly enabled Huawei Security to move from its previous slow pace to a strategic-level rapid charge. 

With the support of Ascend 310 at the front end and Kunpeng 920 at the back end, Huawei's complete set of standardized software and hardware security solutions have been clearly demonstrated to the industry.

For a long time, on the edge side of security, especially in video processing, HiSilicon, Horizon Robotics, Innolux, Cambricon and others have all had layouts in the field of security chips. 

The security cloud chip market is still mainly controlled by foreign companies such as Intel, Nvidia, and Google, and domestic companies have not yet made any major breakthroughs.

Huawei's "small step" may bring China's security industry a "big step" forward.

The scene is the soil of the product, and the ecology determines the value of the product

On January 7 this year, at the Shenzhen Bantian base, Huawei aimed at the enterprise-level data center chip and server market and released the ARM-based processor - Kunpeng 920. The main application scenarios include big data, distributed storage, ARM native applications, etc. 

"Today's launch of Kunpeng 920 is an important milestone for Huawei in intelligent computing." 

At the launch event, Huawei's President of Strategic Marketing Xu Wenwei generously praised the processor for its dazzling aura and historical significance.

Whether intentional or unintentional, Huawei's release of the Kunpeng 920 chip based on the ARM architecture is bound to bring certain pressure to other chip manufacturers.

The scene is the soil of the product, and the ecology determines the value of the product. 

If Huawei wants to succeed in the chip market, it must find safe and fertile soil for the Kunpeng 920 chip so that it can be better incubated in the scenario.

Today, this intelligent video cloud platform is another greenhouse for the Kunpeng 920 chip. 

So, where are their scenes?

Undoubtedly, security is the safe and fertile soil for the Kunpeng 920 chip. At present, the Kunpeng 920 chip has enough confidence to take on such a heavy responsibility.

From an objective perspective, whether a chip is competitive requires measuring its "4P" strengths: performance, productivity, power, and price.

Previously, Huawei announced a series of performance parameters of the Kunpeng 920 chip, including:

The Kunpeng 920 chip uses a 7nm manufacturing process. At a typical main frequency, the chip's SPECint Benchmark score exceeds 930 points, which is 25% higher than the industry benchmark, and its energy efficiency is 30% better than the industry benchmark.

Kunpeng 920 chip can reach 2.6GHz main frequency, and a single chip can support 64 cores. The chip integrates 8-channel DDR4, and the memory bandwidth exceeds the industry mainstream by 46%. The chip integrates 100G RoCE Ethernet card function, supports PCIe4.0 and CCIX interface, and can provide 640Gbps total bandwidth. The single-slot interface rate is twice the industry mainstream rate. 

Judging from the above parameters, the Kunpeng 920 chip continues the low power consumption advantage of ARM chips and strengthens Huawei's technological advantages in the communications field. However, in terms of processing performance, even though Huawei uses the industry-leading 7nm manufacturing process, the single chip frequency of 2.6GHz is not outstanding. 

Although the Kunpeng 920 chip can gradually meet the performance requirements of enterprise servers by increasing its number, it is difficult to have both performance and power consumption. Ultimately, it will depend on Huawei's subsequent investment in ARM chips and the optimization and improvement of a series of micro-architecture designs of ARM chips.

Through all these efforts and explorations, Huawei hopes to leverage HiSilicon's accumulated technology and practical experience in ARM chips to free itself from being controlled by others in its core key technologies in the enterprise field, and to create stronger technological advantages for itself in the fields of smart cities, safe cities, and security. 

It should be pointed out that Huawei will be more cautious in deploying the Kunpeng 920 chip in the B-end market than in using ARM chips in smart terminals (such as Huawei phones).

The main reason is that the application of chips on the server side is much more complicated than on smart terminals. There are mature application scenarios on mobile phones, but in the field of enterprise-level servers, it will affect the daily production performance of unit users. It is no exaggeration to describe it as life-threatening. This requires a long cycle.

A chance at a bend

It is easy to shake a mountain, but difficult to shake X86.

Before the Kunpeng 920 chip, the biggest weakness of servers based on ARM chips was the lack of performance and ecosystem construction, which is precisely the strength of X86 servers.

Although the performance of a single X86 server is much inferior to that of mainframes, minicomputers and other high-performance beasts, its overall performance has been compensated by its advantage in quantity and the development of cloud technology, and it has advantages in scalability and cost-effectiveness.

From Huawei's perspective, the group is the backer of this intelligent video cloud platform based on the Kunpeng 920 chip. Huawei's strategy is that as long as there are scenarios available, this cloud platform has the potential to become mainstream. 

In addition, another trend that is beneficial to Huawei's security is that in the AI ​​era, the scenario-based demands faced by heterogeneous computing also provide them with richer customized scenarios. 

The performance of traditional standardized general products can no longer meet the personalized needs of AI, because the single track is subdivided into more independent tracks, and the cost of covering everything will increase greatly.

The stage has been set, the drums and piano have been played, and now it’s time for the Kunpeng 920 chip and Ascend 310 to perform. 

At present, Huawei Security has unveiled the prelude to the application of ARM server chips, and only time and the market can prove its future performance.

The successful launch of the industry's first fully independent innovative edge video cloud platform further demonstrates that China's security back-end chips are gradually beginning to get rid of its dependence on other countries. This is a milestone step.