Well, the US may have tried to ease the approval criteria for Nvidia H200 chip exports to China. But evidently, Beijing looks to be having none of that. Quite literally.
The latest report here states that China customs authorities have told customs agents this week that Nvidia’s H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips are not permitted to enter the country. One of the sources claimed that:
“The wording from the officials is so severe that it is basically a ban for now, though this might change in the future should things evolve.”
As a reminder, the H200 AI chip is quite the contentious issue involving US-China relations at this point in time as it it Nvidia’s second-most powerful AI chip.
The report goes on to say that Chinese government officials have also called tech firms to a meeting where they were explicitly instructed not to purchase the H200 chips unless necessary.
Another source added that so far, exemptions are only being discussed for R&D purposes and universities. Otherwise, this looks to be a blanket ban unless there are special circumstances involved.
That’s a rough one and reaffirms the main risk to Nvidia’s outlook for this year, that being their ability to hang in the China market.
And if anything, it continues to highlight the push by Beijing to want to break away from the stranglehold of US tech. The main issue for them is that they are still not able to compete with domestic firms still lagging behind in terms of developing a similar product to compete.
This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.