Nvidia Commences Sampling AI chips For China market

Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, has stated that the company offers its customers sample versions of two new AI chips designed for the Chinese market. This move aims to protect the company's market dominance in China, which is currently being threatened by U.S. export restrictions.

"We're sampling it with customers now. Both of them comply with the regulation without a license. We're looking forward to customer feedback on it,” Huang added in an interview after releasing Nvidia's quarterly results.

"We're expecting that we're... going to go compete for business, and hopefully we can serve the market successfully."

According to the chip industry newsletter SemiAnalysis, Nvidia plans to launch three chips, namely H20, L20, and L2, in China. These chips are equipped with Nvidia's latest A.I. features, but their computing power has been reduced to comply with the new U.S. regulations, per the newsletter's analysis of the chips' specs.

Nvidia is now accepting pre-orders for the H20 chip, the most powerful among the three chips designed for the Chinese market. The company's distributors have priced the H20 chip at the same level as a rival product from Huawei. The H20 chip was initially scheduled to be launched in November but faced delays as server manufacturers encountered issues integrating the chip, as per CNA.

Nvidia's business in China suffered after the U.S. government tightened export control measures in October, including restrictions on shipping advanced Nvidia chips to China.

"This last quarter, our business significantly declined as we...stopped shipping in the marketplace (for China)," Huang said during the earnings call.