When it comes to the race for the hardware needed to support artificial intelligence, his company "isn't that powerful yet", Ren added in a lengthy front-page interview with the People's Daily this week. Still, there is "no need to worry" about the US restrictions, he insisted. By bundling Huawei's chips together, or so-called clustering, they can still match rival offerings from top global players.
These comments, which have garnered international headlines and gone viral at home on Weibo, appear to be at odds with each other. But the reality is that both things can be true at once. They expose a critical crossroads for Chinese AI as competing interests vie to control its fate in the long run. Understanding this is especially crucial at a time when export controls are on the negotiating table in trade talks.
Part of the reason that Ren's humble admission raised eyebrows is because Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has spent the better part of this year heaping praise on Huawei's breakthroughs. Huang said China is "not behind" in AI, and called the Shenzhen giant, specifically, "one of the most formidable technology companies in the world".
Huang's high acclaim, however, must be taken with a grain of salt: Washington's clampdowns have cost his company billions of dollars. He's complained extensively of how steeply Nvidia's market share in the mainland has plunged because of the ever-tightening export controls - mostly to the gain of Huawei, which has been long targeted by the US.
Beijing is in the midst of using all of the levers at its disposal to nudge the sector in this direction. This objective predated Washington's curbs, but the outside pressure has undoubtedly forced China to double down on self-reliance.