US licenses Nvidia to export chips to China, official says
The US last month reversed an April ban on the sale of the H20 chip to China. The company had tailored the microprocessor specially to the Chinese market to comply with the Biden-era AI chip export controls.
The curbs will slice US$8 billion off sales from its July quarter, the chipmaker has warned.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang met with Trump on Wednesday, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
A spokesperson for Nvidia declined comment. A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The company said in July it was filing applications with the US government to resume sales to China of the H20 graphics processing unit, and had been assured it would get the licenses soon.
It is unclear how many licenses may have been issued, which companies Nvidia is allowed to ship the H20s to, and the value of the shipments allowed.
Nvidia disclosed in April that it expected a US$5.5 billion charge related to the restrictions. In May, Nvidia said the actual first-quarter charge due to the H20 restrictions was US$1 billion less than expected because it was able to reuse some materials.
The Financial Times first reported Friday's developments.
Nvidia said last month that its products have no "backdoors" that would allow remote access or control after China raised concerns over potential security risks in the H20 chip.
BIG MARKET
Exports of Nvidia's other advanced AI chips, barring the H20, to China are still restricted.
Successive US administrations have curbed exports of advanced chips to China, looking to stymie Beijing's AI and defense development.
While this has impacted US firms' ability to fully address booming demand from China, one of the world's largest semiconductor markets, it still remains an important revenue driver for American chipmakers.
Huang has said the company's leadership position could slip without sales to China, where developers were being courted by Huawei Technologies with chips produced in China.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Zelensky thanks Europe for its support as Kyiv seeks place at table with Trump and Putin
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says any decisions taken without Ukraine will be "stillborn" and unworkable. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked European leaders on Aug 10 for backing his demand for a seat at the table as Russia and the US prepare for a summit this week where Kyiv fears they could seek to dictate terms to it for ending the war. US President Donald Trump, who for weeks had been threatening new sanctions against Russia for failing to halt the conflict, announced instead on Aug 8 that he would hold an August 15 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. A White House official said on Aug 9 that Mr Trump was open to Mr Zelensky attending, but that preparations currently were for a bilateral meeting with Mr Putin. The Kremlin leader last week ruled out meeting Mr Zelensky at this point, saying the conditions for such an encounter were "unfortunately still far" from being met. Mr Trump said a potential deal would involve "some swapping of territories to the betterment of both (sides)", a statement that compounded Ukrainian alarm that it may face pressure to surrender more land. Mr Zelensky says any decisions taken without Ukraine will be "stillborn" and unworkable. On Aug 9, the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Finland and the European Commission said in a joint statement that any diplomatic solution must protect the vital security interests of Ukraine and Europe. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore 55,000 BTO units to be launched from 2025 to 2027, will help moderate HDB resale prices: Minister Singapore First voluntary redevelopment projects for HDB flats likely to be launched in first half of 2030s Singapore Over 118,000 speeding violations in first half of 2025; situation shows no signs of improvement: TP Singapore Israel's plan to step up Gaza offensive dangerous and unacceptable: MFA Singapore Four men arrested in Bukit Timah believed to be linked to housebreaking syndicates Singapore Criminal trial of Hyflux founder Olivia Lum and five others starts Aug 11 Singapore 'We could feel the heat from our house': Car catches fire in Bidadari area Singapore Why some teens cook despite Singapore's da bao culture "The path to peace cannot be decided without Ukraine," they said, demanding "robust and credible security guarantees" to allow Ukraine to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Mr Zelensky said the following day: "The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people today for the sake of peace in Ukraine, which is defending the vital security interests of our European nations." A European official said Europe had come up with a counter-proposal to Mr Trump's, but declined to provide details. Russian officials accused Europe of trying to thwart Mr Trump's efforts to end the war. "The Euro-imbeciles are trying to prevent American efforts to help resolve the Ukrainian conflict," former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev posted on social media on Aug 10. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a vituperative statement that the relationship between Ukraine and the European Union resembled "necrophilia". Mr Roman Alekhin, a Russian war blogger, said Europe had been reduced to the role of a spectator. "If Putin and Trump reach an agreement directly, Europe will be faced with a fait accompli. Kyiv - even more so," he said. Captured territory No details of the proposed territorial swap that Mr Trump alluded to have been officially announced. Russia, which mounted a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 , holds about a fifth of the country and has claimed the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as its own, although it controls only about 70 per cent of the last three. Russia has also taken pockets of territory in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions and said in recent weeks it has captured villages in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukraine says it holds a sliver of the Kursk region in western Russia. Mr Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst, said a swop could entail Russia handing over 1,500 sq km to Ukraine and obtaining 7,000 sq km, which he said Russia would capture anyway within about six months. He provided no evidence to back any of those figures. Russia took only about 500 sq km of territory in July, according to Western military analysts who say its grinding advances have come at the cost of very high casualties. Ukraine and its European allies have been haunted for months by the fear that Mr Trump, keen to claim credit for making peace and hoping to seal lucrative joint business deals between the US and Russia, could align with Mr Putin to cut a deal that would be deeply disadvantageous to Kyiv. They had drawn some encouragement lately as Mr Trump, having piled heavy pressure on Mr Zelensky and berated him publicly in the Oval Office in February, began criticising Mr Putin and expressing disgust as Russia pounded Kyiv and other cities with its heaviest air attacks of the war. But the impending Putin-Trump summit, agreed during a trip to Moscow by Mr Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff last week, has revived fears that Kyiv and Europe could be sidelined. "What we will see emerge from Alaska will almost certainly be a catastrophe for Ukraine and Europe," wrote Dr Phillips P. O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. "And Ukraine will face the most terrible dilemma. Do they accept this humiliating and destructive deal? Or do they go it alone, unsure of the backing of European states?" REUTERS
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Zelenskiy thanks Europe for its support as Kyiv seeks place at table with Trump and Putin
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox A serviceman of the 115th Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces attends a training between combat missions at a training ground, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine August 9, 2025. REUTERS/Sofiia Gatilova Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked European leaders on Sunday for backing his demand for a seat at the table as Russia and the United States prepare for a summit this week where Kyiv fears they could seek to dictate terms to it for ending the 3-1/2-year war. U.S. President Donald Trump, who for weeks had been threatening new sanctions against Russia for failing to halt the conflict, announced instead last Friday that he would hold an August 15 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. A White House official said on Saturday that Trump was open to Zelenskiy attending, but that preparations currently were for a bilateral meeting with Putin. The Kremlin leader last week ruled out meeting Zelenskiy at this point, saying the conditions for such an encounter were "unfortunately still far" from being met. Trump said a potential deal would involve "some swapping of territories to the betterment of both (sides)", a statement that compounded Ukrainian alarm that it may face pressure to surrender more land. Zelenskiy says any decisions taken without Ukraine will be "stillborn" and unworkable. On Saturday the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Finland and the European Commission said in a joint statement that any diplomatic solution must protect the vital security interests of Ukraine and Europe. "The path to peace cannot be decided without Ukraine," they said, demanding "robust and credible security guarantees" to allow Ukraine to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore 55,000 BTO units to be launched from 2025 to 2027, will help moderate HDB resale prices: Minister Singapore First voluntary redevelopment projects for HDB flats likely to be launched in first half of 2030s Singapore Over 118,000 speeding violations in first half of 2025; situation shows no signs of improvement: TP Singapore Israel's plan to step up Gaza offensive dangerous and unacceptable: MFA Singapore Four men arrested in Bukit Timah believed to be linked to housebreaking syndicates Singapore Criminal trial of Hyflux founder Olivia Lum and five others starts Aug 11 Singapore 'We could feel the heat from our house': Car catches fire in Bidadari area Singapore Why some teens cook despite Singapore's da bao culture Zelenskiy said on Sunday: "The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people today for the sake of peace in Ukraine, which is defending the vital security interests of our European nations." A European official said Europe had come up with a counter-proposal to Trump's, but declined to provide details. Russian officials accused Europe of trying to thwart Trump's efforts to end the war. "The Euro-imbeciles are trying to prevent American efforts to help resolve the Ukrainian conflict," former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev posted on social media on Sunday. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a vituperative statement that the relationship between Ukraine and the European Union resembled "necrophilia". Roman Alekhin, a Russian war blogger, said Europe had been reduced to the role of a spectator. "If Putin and Trump reach an agreement directly, Europe will be faced with a fait accompli. Kyiv - even more so," he said. CAPTURED TERRITORY No details of the proposed territorial swap that Trump alluded to have been officially announced. Russia, which mounted a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, holds about a fifth of the country and has claimed the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as its own, although it controls only about 70% of the last three. Russia has also taken pockets of territory in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions and said in recent weeks it has captured villages in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukraine says it holds a sliver of the Kursk region in western Russia. Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst, said a swap could entail Russia handing over 1,500 sq km to Ukraine and obtaining 7,000 sq km, which he said Russia would capture anyway within about six months. He provided no evidence to back any of those figures. Russia took only about 500 sq km of territory in July, according to Western military analysts who say its grinding advances have come at the cost of very high casualties. Ukraine and its European allies have been haunted for months by the fear that Trump, keen to claim credit for making peace and hoping to seal lucrative joint business deals between the U.S. and Russia, could align with Putin to cut a deal that would be deeply disadvantageous to Kyiv. They had drawn some encouragement lately as Trump, having piled heavy pressure on Zelenskiy and berated him publicly in the Oval Office in February, began criticising Putin and expressing disgust as Russia pounded Kyiv and other cities with its heaviest air attacks of the war. But the impending Putin-Trump summit, agreed during a trip to Moscow by Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff last week, has revived fears that Kyiv and Europe could be sidelined. "What we will see emerge from Alaska will almost certainly be a catastrophe for Ukraine and Europe," wrote Phillips P. O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. "And Ukraine will face the most terrible dilemma. Do they accept this humiliating and destructive deal? Or do they go it alone, unsure of the backing of European states?" REUTERS
Business Times
3 hours ago
- Business Times
Hyperlocal deliveries fuel 300% stock rise for Shopee owner Sea
[SINGAPORE] In the battle royale of global e-commerce, the names are familiar and formidable: Amazon. TikTok Shop. Shein. Temu. But in South-east Asia, home to 675 million people and a US$160 billion online shopping market, the reigning monarch is an app the colour of a traffic cone. It is called Shopee. And it is thriving. Owned by Singapore-based Sea Ltd, Shopee has pulled off one of the more improbable corporate comebacks in recent memory, sending its stock soaring more than 300 per cent since the start of 2024. A key secret weapon is a little known logistics operation powered by an army of homemakers, students and retirees. And the help of some very large Ikea bags. That operation is SPX Express, a homegrown in-house delivery network that Sea spent years building in the shadows. While rivals like plastered ads across the city for Black Friday and TikTok Shop flooded feeds with flash sales, Shopee was busy rewiring the infrastructure of South-east Asian commerce one community at a time. They are a familiar sight in Singapore. The retired 'uncle' in flip-flops, slinging parcels across a housing block in an ever-practical blue Ikea bag. Or an entrepreneurial homemaker busily sorting a makeshift Shopee kiosk beside the elevator. They are the human backbone of SPX Express, which now handles the majority of Shopee's several billion parcels annually. And Wall Street has noticed. Shopee's success has helped Sea inch towards a US$100 billion market cap, on the heels of Singaporean banking giant DBS, the region's most valuable company. The stock, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has soared 324 per cent since hitting a low in January last year. Of the 41 analysts tracked by Bloomberg who rate Sea, 33 of them have a 'buy' recommendation on the stock. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up 'Sea's significant recovery was largely driven by growth in its e-commerce business, which was executed really well during the post-Covid period,' said Hussaini Saifee, an equity research analyst at Maybank Securities, who rates the stock a 'buy.' In 2021, Shopee was facing a conundrum: demand was exploding – especially during the Covid pandemic – but its delivery pipeline was buckling under the pressure. Until then, Shopee had relied mostly on third-party carriers like J&T Global Express and Singapore Post to navigate the logistical complexity of South-east Asia: thousands of islands, alleys too narrow for vans, dirt roads more familiar to scooters than trucks. That changed almost overnight. As online orders more than doubled in 2021, Sea bet big on building its own logistics arm. During a 2022 Sea earnings call, chief executive officer Forrest Li pledged to build up its logistics business, spending nearly US$1 billion that year alone. Lowering the cost of delivering parcels will be 'key to long-term growth,' he said. It was a big risk during a difficult period. Sea had just lost almost 90 per cent of its value from its 2021 peak. Investors were disillusioned about its money-making potential in a global tech rout, scrutinising Sea's growth prospects after shoppers emerging from pandemic lockdowns started cutting back on online purchases. The gaming and e-commerce giant had cut about 7,000 jobs to try assuage some of these concerns. It also shuttered its e-commerce operations in some European and Latin American markets and said it would reduce expenses to cope. CEO Li brought in Hoirul Hafiidz Bin Maksom, a bespectacled 43-year-old former hospital operator, experienced in coordinating large local teams in a high stakes, time-sensitive, customer-centric environment. Over the span of two years, as Hoirul obsessed over shortening delivery timings and ways to bring down costs, Sea built up a network of delivery drivers, warehouses and thousands of collection points. The market share of its logistics operations in South-east Asia, which was essentially non-existent in 2022, grew to about 25 per cent in 2024, according to research firm Momentum Works. 'Covid was a great accelerator for us,' said Hoirul. 'There was definitely a gap in the services available for last-mile logistics, just because e-commerce was just growing too fast during Covid. So we had to do our part and solve this problem.' Today, SPX Express is a finely tuned operation. At midnight, sorting centres buzz to life. Parcels are unpacked, scanned, and routed via conveyor belts into colour-coded plastic bags – blue, orange, green and purple – each representing a different part of the island. One such sorting facility can processes up to 400,000 parcels a day. With SPX Express, 90 per cent of its parcels are delivered the next day in Singapore. In the rest of Asia, almost half of SPX Express orders were delivered within two days. But what's truly characteristic to Shopee begins after the parcels leave the warehouse. SPX Express' edge is in its intimacy. It's the fact that your parcel might be delivered by your retired neighbour, or the kid next door looking to earn pocket money. People like John, a 64-year-old who's been delivering in his neighbourhood for four years, going up and down apartments in a quarter-mile radius to hand over hundreds of parcels every day. He does it for the money, sure – a little extra cash is always nice. But he also likes the community. 'I've made so many friends, I get to chat with elderly neighbours who welcome me into their home and witness milestones of so many families,' John said. Shopee scaled this model. Hoirul's lightbulb moment came while walking through his public housing estate last year. He noticed that neighbours were already informally receiving parcels on behalf of others. Why not pay them? This would be easy to set up, the parcels would be safe and SPX Express would be able to leverage the existing public housing infrastructure of Singapore, where more than 80 per cent of the population lives. So Shopee started doing just that – setting up collection points in the very homes of the people who live in the buildings they deliver to. Shopee now has more than 3,500 of these sites, which also include shops and lockers, across Singapore. Some look like tidy mini post offices. Others are literally living rooms stacked with brown packages and a folding table. Pearlyn Tan and her husband, a delivery driver, run one out of their flat. She handles up to 80 parcels a day. At S$0.30 per package, they earn enough to cover a few days of groceries each week. Then there is Diyana Scott, a TikTok influencer and mother of five, who turned to Shopee after losing her job earlier this year. Her whole family helps. Her kids rotate shifts and greet neighbours collecting their orders. 'I made new friendships with many mothers in the neighbourhood,' Scott said. 'I love it.' 'Shopee's vibrant orange is plastered over thousands of touchpoints all across South-east Asia – delivery trucks, parcel lockers and sometimes even on the back of motorbikes,' said Jianggan Li, founder of Singapore-based research firm Momentum Works. 'This level of visibility, coupled with the human touch, helps Shopee reinforce their presence in the fabric of life of locals; especially across South-east Asia's diverse landscape and hard-to-reach places in the region.' By the fall of 2024, Sea's logistics arm was delivering a majority of its own packages. It also briefly surpassed J&T Express, according to Momentum Works. SPX is also partnering with other companies like Shopify to expand its logistics services. Ahead of Sea's second quarter earnings on Aug 12, the company is forecast to post a record US$5 billion in revenue, according to Bloomberg estimates. Its e-commerce arm is projected to account for 72 per cent (US$3.61 billion) of sales, with value-added services including logistics estimated to contribute US$799 million, up 14 per cent from a year ago. Shopee's market share has jumped to 56 per cent of US$120 billion in gross merchandise value last year, according to Momentum Works based on the top four South-east Asian e-commerce platforms. TikTok Shop and Lazada claimed 19 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively. But SPX Express is not friction-free. Residents complain that they are using shared public spaces to sort parcels and local councils in Singapore often make them shift from one block to another. And the gig-like pay structure, with typical payouts of S$0.50 per parcel, mean workers often hustle longer hours to keep up with rising volumes. Also, while SPX may have briefly overtaken J&T Express in parcel volume, margins remain tight and SPX has yet to prove that it can win outside of Shopee's terrain as it looks to offer its logistics services to more companies. Meanwhile, TikTok Shop remains a formidable force with its tight partnership with J&T Express and deep-pocketed investment in the region. 'TikTok Shop's emergence was a concern for Shopee because they have the capital backing from ByteDance to take market share,' said Maybank's Saifee. 'Shopee's retention of its market share is linked to SPX Express, as well as increasing the assortment on their platform and bringing down prices by working together with sellers.' But it is clear that Shopee has become part of the social fabric in South-east Asia. In Indonesia, SPX collection points operate out of warungs – small family shops that double as pickup depots. In Taiwan, they have been installed in convenience stores and shops filled with Shopee lockers. In Brazil, where Shopee has also expanded, the network is growing too. John, the retiree, has witnessed first hand how fast Shopee has expanded and is not worried about the competition. The number of packages he delivers has tripled in four years. He knows his neighbours' unit numbers by heart and sometimes slips the package behind their shoe rack if they're not home. 'I just take things in my stride,' said John, hurrying off with two Ikea bags full of parcels. BLOOMBERG
