As the United States contemplates stricter trade measures to stop advanced chip technology from being exported to China, Nvidia, a prominent American chip manufacturer, is reportedly developing a modified version of its new artificial intelligence chips to align with these regulations.
According to unnamed sources cited by Reuters, Nvidia is creating a variant of its upcoming Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. The company plans to collaborate with local distributor Inspur to introduce and market the chip, provisionally named the “B20,” in China.
The B20 is anticipated to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not provided any comments regarding this development.
Currently, Nvidia offers three chips tailored to meet U.S. export rules, including the H20, which the company has discounted due to sluggish sales competition from Chinese rival Huawei. Despite these challenges, sales of the H20 are reportedly increasing, and it is projected that Nvidia will sell over one million H20 chips in China this year, generating approximately $12 billion, according to data from SemiAnalysis, as reported by the Financial Times. This forecast is nearly double Huawei’s estimated sales for its own Ascend 910B chip.
However, Jefferies analysts have warned that the H20 chips may face further risks under upcoming U.S. trade regulations. With an annual review of semiconductor export controls scheduled for October, analysts believe it is very likely that the H20 will be prohibited from being sold to China. This prohibition could be enacted in several ways, including a specific product ban, a reduction of the computing power limit, or restrictions on memory capacity.
Furthermore, the U.S. may expand its export controls to include chips distributed to other regional nations such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, or potentially extend these controls to overseas Chinese firms, though the latter would present implementation challenges, according to analyst insights.