Nvidia seems determined to find a way to sell AI chips in China despite U.S. export restrictions.
The semiconductor giant is planning to launch an AI chip specifically for the Chinese market as early as September, as originally reported by the Financial Times.
This AI chip would be based on Nvidia’s Blackwell RTX Pro 6000 processor, which is already modified to meet the existing AI chip restrictions, the Financial Times added. These chips wouldn’t include high-bandwidth memory or NVLink, Nvidia’s high-speed but low-latency communication interface, both of which are features of the company’s advanced AI chips.
Last month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company would no longer include the Chinese market in its revenue and profit forecasts. Maybe that will be a short-lived change.
Nvidia declined to comment on the news.
An Nvidia spokesperson added, “With the current export controls, we are effectively out of the China datacenter market, which is now served only by competitors such as Huawei. China has one of the largest populations of developers in the world, creating open-source foundation models and non-military applications used globally. While security is paramount, every one of those applications should run best on the U.S. AI stack.”