As the United States considers implementing stricter trade restrictions to prevent advanced chip technology from being exported to China, Nvidia, a prominent U.S. chipmaker, is reportedly developing a variant of its new artificial intelligence chips to adhere to these regulations.
According to a report by Reuters, Nvidia is collaborating with a local distribution partner, Inspur, to introduce and market a chip tentatively named the “B20” specifically for the Chinese market. This chip is anticipated to start shipping in the second quarter of 2025, though Nvidia has chosen not to comment on the matter.
Currently, Nvidia has three chip models designed to comply with U.S. export controls, one of which is the H20. The company has reduced prices on the H20 in response to weak sales in an effort to compete with chips from the domestic Chinese competitor, Huawei. However, recent reports indicate that sales of the H20 are recovering, with expectations to sell over one million units in China this year, totaling approximately $12 billion, despite existing U.S. trade restrictions.
Financial data suggests that Nvidia’s sales expectations for the H20 nearly double Huawei’s projections for its Ascend 910B chip. Despite this success, analysts from Jefferies caution that the H20 could face risks under potential new U.S. trade regulations. They predict that during the annual review of semiconductor export controls in October, it is likely that the H20 may be prohibited from being sold to China through various means including product-specific bans or modifications to current computing power and memory capacity limits.
Additionally, there is speculation that the U.S. might extend these export restrictions to chips destined for other countries in the region, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, or even to overseas Chinese firms, though implementing such measures could pose additional challenges.