# Sberbank seeks Chinese chips for GigaChat AI model under sanctions pressure

_Wednesday, May 20, 2026 at 12:01 PM EDT · AI, Policy · Latest · Tier 2 — Notable_

Russia's largest bank is turning to Chinese processors to power its GigaChat AI system as Western sanctions block access to advanced hardware.

Sberbank CEO German Gref said the bank hopes to use Chinese-made chips for the flagship model. The comments came during President Vladimir Putin's visit to Beijing. Gref did not name specific chips but Huawei's Ascend 950 family is seen as the likely candidate.

Huawei faces heavy domestic demand from ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent. ByteDance alone placed $5.6 billion in orders for the Ascend 950PR earlier this year. Production is constrained by yields and long cycle times at SMIC.

Sberbank's existing setup mixes stockpiled Western GPUs with Chinese and domestic options. The bank recently acquired a stake in Russia's largest electronics producer to bolster local chip output, though that focuses on defense and industrial uses rather than AI accelerators.

The Putin-Xi declaration called for closer AI cooperation, but allocation for a sanctioned buyer remains uncertain.

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