As the United States contemplates stricter trade restrictions to prevent advanced chip technology from reaching China, Nvidia, a U.S.-based chip manufacturer, is reportedly developing a version of its new artificial intelligence chips to adhere to these regulations.
According to Reuters, Nvidia is working on a variant of its Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. The company plans to collaborate with local distribution partner Inspur to introduce and market the chip, which is tentatively named the “B20,” in China.
Sources indicate that the B20 is anticipated to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025, although Nvidia has opted not to comment on the report.
Nvidia has created three chips that are designed to comply with existing U.S. export controls, including the H20 chip, for which the company has reduced prices in response to slow sales, aiming to compete with chips from Chinese rival Huawei. However, reports suggest that H20 sales are now on the rise, with forecasts indicating that Nvidia may sell over one million H20 chips in China this year, valued at approximately $12 billion, despite ongoing U.S. trade restrictions. This projection nearly doubles Huawei’s expected sales for its Ascend 910B chip, according to data from SemiAnalysis.
Amid these developments, Jefferies analysts have warned that Nvidia’s H20 chips could face risks under potential new U.S. trade regulations. They anticipate that during the upcoming annual review of U.S. semiconductor export controls in October, there is a strong likelihood that the H20 chip could be banned from sale to China. Such a ban could manifest in several ways, including a product-specific ban, a reduction in the computing power cap, or restrictions on memory capacity.
Furthermore, the U.S. may expand its export controls on chips sold to neighboring countries, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, or extend these regulations to overseas Chinese companies, although the latter would be more challenging to enforce, analysts noted.