Huawei introduces high-performance ARM-based CPU

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd unveiled a high-performance chip for servers on Tuesday to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers such as Intel Corp, amid its ongoing push to expand presence in the semiconductor sector.

The central processing unit, called Kunpeng 920, is based on the ARM architecture. It is designed to better meet the exponentially growing demand for bigger computing capabilities in data centers while offering lower power consumption.

Xu Wenwei, chief strategy marketing officer at Huawei, said no single architecture can meet all computing demands and the company aims to move toward a more diversified computing power world.

"Kunpeng 920 is arguably the world's best high-performance ARM-based CPU," Xu said, "from the moment on, the saying that the ARM design is not good at processing data becomes invalid."

The move also marks that Huawei has joined the ranks of players such as Qualcomm Inc to challenge the dominant position of Intel's x86 architecture in server chips.

Designed on the basis of ARM architecture, Kunpeng 920 feature far lower power consumption than Intel's X86-based processors, which can greatly help reduce energy costs.

Power consumption accounts for around 30 to 50 percent of IT costs, Li Guanyu, deputy head of the informatization and software service department at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said in an earlier interview.

"As the demand for real-time data processing capabilities will surge in future, the global industry desires high-efficiency, low-energy and low-cost servers," Li added.