DeepSeek R2 delay due to transition to Huawei Ascend chip for training? DS + HW engineers collaborating on CUDA to CANN migration is ultimately positive for HW in the long run. R2 release was originally expected last May. Since then at least one SOTA Chinese model has been released which was trained entirely on HW hardware. FT: Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek delayed the release of its new model after failing to train it using Huawei’s chips, highlighting the limits of Beijing’s push to replace US technology. DeepSeek was encouraged by authorities to adopt Huawei’s Ascend processor rather than use Nvidia’s systems after releasing its R1 model in January, according to three people familiar with the matter. But the Chinese start-up encountered persistent technical issues during its R2 training process using Ascend chips, prompting it to use Nvidia chips for training and Huawei’s for inference, said the people. ... Huawei sent a team of engineers to DeepSeek’s office to help the company use its AI chip to develop the R2 model, according to two people. Yet despite having the team on site, DeepSeek could not conduct a successful training run on the Ascend chip, said the people. DeepSeek is still working with Huawei to make the model compatible with Ascend for inference, the people said. ... The R2 launch was also delayed because of longer-than-expected data labelling for its updated model, another person added. Chinese media reports have suggested that the model may be released as soon as in the coming weeks.