Chinese Firms Rush For Nvidia Chips As US Prepares To Lift Ban (arstechnica.com) 47
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Chinese firms have begun rushing to order Nvidia's H20 AI chips as the company plans to resume sales to mainland China, Reuters reports. The chip giant expects to receive US government licenses soon so that it can restart shipments of the restricted processors just days after CEO Jensen Huang met with President Donald Trump, potentially generating $15 billion to $20 billion in additional revenue this year. Nvidia said in a statement that it is filing applications with the US government to resume H20 sales and that "the US government has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon." [...]
The H20 chips represent Nvidia's most capable AI processors legally available in China, though they contain less computing power than versions sold elsewhere due to export restrictions imposed in 2022. Nvidia is currently banned from selling its most powerful GPUs in China. Despite these limitations, Chinese tech giants, including ByteDance and Tencent, are reportedly scrambling to place orders for the lesser chip through what sources describe as an approved list managed by Nvidia. "The Chinese market is massive, dynamic, and highly innovative, and it's also home to many AI researchers," Reuters reports Huang telling Chinese state broadcaster CCTV during his visit to Beijing, where he is scheduled to speak at a supply chain expo on Wednesday. "Therefore, it is indeed crucial for American companies to establish roots in the Chinese market."
The resumption of H20 sales marks a shift in US-China technology relations after the chips were effectively banned in April with an onerous export license requirement, forcing Nvidia to take a $4.5 billion write-off for excess inventory and purchase obligations. According to Reuters, Chinese sales generated $17 billion in revenue for Nvidia in the fiscal year ending January 26, representing 13 percent of total sales. Nvidia also announced it will introduce a new "RTX Pro" chip model specifically tailored to meet regulatory rules in the Chinese market, though the company provided no details about its specifications or capabilities.
The H20 chips represent Nvidia's most capable AI processors legally available in China, though they contain less computing power than versions sold elsewhere due to export restrictions imposed in 2022. Nvidia is currently banned from selling its most powerful GPUs in China. Despite these limitations, Chinese tech giants, including ByteDance and Tencent, are reportedly scrambling to place orders for the lesser chip through what sources describe as an approved list managed by Nvidia. "The Chinese market is massive, dynamic, and highly innovative, and it's also home to many AI researchers," Reuters reports Huang telling Chinese state broadcaster CCTV during his visit to Beijing, where he is scheduled to speak at a supply chain expo on Wednesday. "Therefore, it is indeed crucial for American companies to establish roots in the Chinese market."
The resumption of H20 sales marks a shift in US-China technology relations after the chips were effectively banned in April with an onerous export license requirement, forcing Nvidia to take a $4.5 billion write-off for excess inventory and purchase obligations. According to Reuters, Chinese sales generated $17 billion in revenue for Nvidia in the fiscal year ending January 26, representing 13 percent of total sales. Nvidia also announced it will introduce a new "RTX Pro" chip model specifically tailored to meet regulatory rules in the Chinese market, though the company provided no details about its specifications or capabilities.
So...exactly who thinks....? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why are the feds lifting this ban?
I cannot for the life of me, think of one positive thing this will lead to....
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Re: So...exactly who thinks....? (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is it will lead to a positive increase in Trump's bank account.
Re: So...exactly who thinks....? (Score:1)
Really, based on what evidence?
Re: So...exactly who thinks....? (Score:2)
The number of pardons already sold.
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Really, based on what evidence?
Observations of Trump's character and behavior, plus the fact that he's set up extremely hard to trace ways for anyone to funnel arbitrary amounts of money to him.
If he'd like not to be accused of selling favors for cash, he should do what previous presidents have done, put all of his assets in a blind trust, first selling anything non-fungible (e.g. hotels and golf courses), so that no one can give him money except by dropping off a briefcase full of cash which will undoubtedly get noticed and reported.
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So, exactly who thinks this is a good idea selling any tech like this to help the Chinese?
Why are the feds lifting this ban?
I cannot for the life of me, think of one positive thing this will lead to....
Profit: our only purpose, our guiding light, our one true God.
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I think it's a good idea.
Technology embargoes have a poor track record.
If the embargo remained, the Chinese would develop their own tech. In five years, they'd catch up, and in a decade, they'd dominate the world market. America would surrender yet another emerging technology, just like we lost on solar and wind.
China is working on 5 nm semiconductor production. The yields are too low, but they'll work out the kinks.
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China is working on 5 nm semiconductor production. The yields are too low, but they'll work out the kinks.
You could say the same thing about Intel.
But that's not an endorsement of the idea that China will succeed, and the point isn't even to bag on Intel, although that's fun.
ASML is a multinational company. The technology needed to do modern photolitho required the efforts of multiple nations to create. Why should we believe China can do it alone when so far, no one nation can do so?
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They can already see what works
If it was that easy, they would have copied it already.
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they had little incentive when they could just buy it instead
That's nonsense. Of course they would rather be the one selling than the one buying.
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While you can say that the "Final Product That Is EUV Lithography" indeed has parts from all over, EUV was developed in the US, and ASML licenses it from a US holding company.
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Why should we believe China can do it alone ...?
China has more people than America, the EU, and Japan combined.
Last year, Chinese universities graduated fifteen times as many engineers as America.
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I wonder if their schools don't educate engineers as well as ours
Re: So...exactly who thinks....? (Score:2)
Last year China put out more fabricated research papers than the test of the world combined.
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In five years, they'd catch up
No.
and in a decade, they'd dominate the world market
lol. No.
The yields are too low, but they'll work out the kinks.
No.
It will continue to be fabulously expensive. It's a dead-end. But if you need it- you'll pay what it costs.
They will continue trying to get EUV working, as they have for the last decade unsuccessfully.
Re: So...exactly who thinks....? (Score:1)
Maybe you should check out the specs on the Chinese Loongson 3C6000 CPU using 12nm process. Not very advanced but the CCP trolls claim it's better than Intel.
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Look at the amount of investment it spurred in Chinese development of replacement chips. The government made producing cutting edge parts a national strategic goal, and when it does that it tends to end up dominating a decade later.
It's probably too late to stop it now, and I'm sure the real reason they are doing it is because Nvidia paid for some expensive lunches at Mar a Largo, but it may slightly slow things down a bit.
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The government made producing cutting edge parts a national strategic goal, and when it does that it tends to end up dominating a decade later.
That works for battery technology, where the big limiting factor was investment activity. It doesn't work for litho processes where the level of technology is very high. China's limiting factor in this regard is process technology. Even if they figure out how the chips work, which they have decades of experience at doing (decades ago, I worked as a sysadmin for an IC design company whose designs were being copied in China) and are therefore plausibly quite good at it, they still couldn't fab them.
Can they e
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Given the speed at which they have already been progressing with IC fabrication, and the fact that people said the same thing about battery technology, photovoltaics, EV drivertains and cars in general, wireless comms systems like WiFi and 5G... Well, I wouldn't bet against them.
Even on the consumer side, their in-car front end software went from some of the worst to now some of the best on the market, in maybe 5 years. Huge generational improvements, much faster than other manufacturers.
Re: So...exactly who thinks....? (Score:2)
People saying the same things isn't what makes things the same or not.
The West let China get ahead in battery tech, we funded it in fact by getting basically all of our batteries from them.
That's not happening with litho tech.
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Why would they stop working on a replacement when they know that their continued access to this market is completely dependent on the whims of a particularly mercurial orange asshat who changes his mind more often than some people change their socks?
This just fills the current short-term need. They will still continue their development of replacements because it's still in their long-term interest to do so.
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The government made producing cutting edge parts a national strategic goal
And failed.
There is nothing cutting edge about them, they're still a decade behind shit in the west, after a decade of work.
You're really overselling this.
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Seems like a bad deal for the US and short-term-boon-long-term-doom for Nvidia.
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I want to know how much money Jensen put into the Trump bank account as the payoff/bribe.
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Why are the feds lifting this ban?
US wants rare earth minerals, China wants NVidia chips [reuters.com].
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Simple, Nvidia CEO thinks it is a good idea, and thinks the ban is foolish, and managed to get Trump's attention with a well placed bribe... I mean dinner and chat. Trump is that pliable. Whoever is in the room last wins. Same reason Trump is now turning on Russia, because the Russian assets are now being edged out, largely because they got in the way for the Iran stuff.
Welcome to your free market, deregulated, downsized federal government that libertarian types like you have been screaming for decades. You
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Why are you so scared of China?
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Why are you so scared of China?
They're a superpower, and oppressive.
They're scary for the same reason as the USA or Russia.
Re: So...exactly who thinks....? (Score:1)
This is a very stupid move by the fed. You simply can't trust the Chinese.
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Just look up who bought Donnie's crypto coins.
https://www.cryptopolitan.com/... [cryptopolitan.com]
But (Score:3)
But I had it on good authority* that China is innovative and has caught up to or even surpassed us and therefore doesn't need our chips!
* Some clown on social media who's probably a Chinese bot
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Indeed, ten times more powerful than NVidia.
I'm not clear on what you're claiming here. If the article is worth anything, which I don't take for granted, what it says is that they got a speedup for a specific workload by organizing their system with more GPUs per node. That would give a speedup for their workload no matter whose GPUs they used. The article doesn't claim it has anything to do with the performance of their GPUs.
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No. Very much fucking no.
You can't possibly be stupid enough to believe that.
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I have it on good authority that Ferraris are faster than Civics, and therefore there is no market for the Civic.
That is an offtopic response, because the discussion is not about whether anyone will buy Chinese GPUs. It's about whether Chinese GPUs can be competitive for scientific computing. Whether they will ever will be or not, they are not now, which we know because they are still hungry for our hardware. And we can reasonably believe that to be true and not merely propaganda both because of sales, and effort spent redirecting purchases through other nations.
In the really real world, efficiency matters. If you nee
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Actually, loads.
_the ladies_ know if a man is cheap enough to afford a civic then he's a keeper because no other woman would ever try and seduce him despite his massive penis.
Ferrari-wives stay for the boob job but are savvy enough to have read the pre-nup and secured a nice nest-egg when their 5 years are up.
At this point I wonder if busines are buying Trump (Score:3)
I just got a $3.45 "expected tarff tax" from mouser for just $20 bucks in parts. Since Mouser stocks the stuff in the thousands and weeks in advance it seemed odd. Now I wonder if NVIDIA is using the threat of tariffs for customers to do a buying spree then curry favor with Trump to remove the tariff's. I really wish congress could do like ANYTHING right now. They have the power but they don't seem to want to do anything about budget, or tarfs. At least we would have some better guidelines than whatever happens on twitter.
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He doesn't even attempt to hide that he accepts bribes. https://thehill.com/homenews/a... [thehill.com]
A nice round number, $1 million a bribe.
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Problem with those Epstein files it could all be a red herring. Unless it's literally "Trump and Putin were having fun on the island; Photos included!" I doubt much will come from it. We have all seen his campaign and while I think he is a bad leader, you cannot fault his charisma on his base.
Hell, to be truly honest, I am angreyer to the democrats than anything else. I was watching during the whole Bush v Gore thing in Florida and the republicans there did everything in their power to swing that state.
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Mouser ships from US Foreign Trade Zone #39. That's why they can apply tariffs when you buy something instead of when they buy something. This is completely off topic, but you seem uneducated about foreign trade (like our president) so I'm educating you.
I wish... (Score:2)
we could get away from the AI bull that has taken over the articles here.
The "AI" that is referred to everyplace is just predictive text, like cell phones have done since they came out (type in the first three letters and it'll suggest someone's name).
When we get to the SkyNet level is the time to worry... for now, this is just idiots building factory-sized server farms so people can chat with a non-intelligent 'bot, while consuming more and more electricity and space.
Kinda like how Amazon and Google and cl