Amidst the ongoing trade tension between China and the U.S., a regulator in the country has reportedly ordered domestic technology companies to stop buying Nvidia AI chips.
The Financial Times reported the Cyberspace Administration of China told companies, including TikTok parent ByteDance and Alibaba, not to purchase Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D which it explained is a chip designed for use there.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC his company “probably contributed more to the China market than most countries have” during a press conference in London.
“And I’m disappointed with what I see,” Huang said, according to CNBC. “But they have larger agendas to work out between China and the United States, and I’m understanding of that”.
He told the news site Nvidia has guided financial analysts not to include China revenue in financial forecasts.
Nvidia has been in the middle of a tug of war between the administration of US President Donald Trump and the government in China.
Nvidia reconfigured its high-end offerings for China following US export controls on AI chips introduced in October 2023 during President Joe Biden’s administration due to national security concerns. The H20 GPU was the top performing chip prior to export restrictions.
In July the chipmaker received assurances from US authorities it could resume selling the H20 GPU chip.
In August, Chinese authorities warned domestic companies to avoid buying Nvidia’s AI chips. However, Nvidia and AMD reached an agreement with the US government shortly after to restart sales of their AI chips to China.
Earlier this week, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation also found Nvidia violated the country’s anti-monopoly law for its acquisition of Mellanox Technologies in 2020.
Source: Mobile World Live
Image Credit: Nvidia