Malaysia may pick Huawei chips over US warning

Malaysia is close to picking Huawei's AI chips to run a $494 million national AI project, Bloomberg reported Monday. Sources familiar with the plan say the country is leaning toward Huawei's Ascend 910C processor instead of American alternatives. If it goes through, Malaysia would become the first foreign government to pick Chinese AI chips over American ones.

The US has already warned the world about this. Ascend chips, it says, can violate American export-control rules. That's because they're believed to rely on US-origin technology. Malaysia has brushed that off before. In May 2025, a Malaysian minister announced a similar Huawei-powered AI plan. Her office retracted it almost immediately, without explanation. This time, people familiar with the matter say the country is moving forward anyway.

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Will Washington actually punish Malaysia for this? The US has leaned on export rules to keep Huawei's chips out of American allies' data centers. But enforcement against a sovereign government's own infrastructure is untested. If Malaysia builds this system and faces no real consequence, that's a signal. Other countries watching from the sidelines might follow.