Nvidia working on new AI chip for China that outperforms the H20

New Straits Times

5 hours ago

BEIJING/SINGAPORE: Nvidia is developing a new AI chip for China based on its latest Blackwell architecture that will be more powerful than the H20 model it is currently allowed to sell there, two people briefed on the matter said.
US President Donald Trump last week opened the door to the possibility of more advanced Nvidia chips being sold in China. But the sources noted US regulatory approval is far from guaranteed amid deep-seated fears in Washington about giving China too much access to US artificial intelligence technology.
The new chip, tentatively known as the B30A, will use a single-die design that is likely to deliver half the raw computing power of the more sophisticated dual-die configuration in Nvidia's flagship B300 accelerator card, the sources said.
A single-die design is when all the main parts of an integrated circuit are made on one continuous piece of silicon rather than split across multiple dies.
The new chip would have high-bandwidth memory and Nvidia's NVLink technology for fast data transmission between processors, features that are also in the H20 - a chip based on the company's older Hopper architecture.
The chip's specifications are not completely finalised but Nvidia hopes to deliver samples to Chinese clients for testing as early as next month, said the sources who were not authorised to speak to media and declined to be identified.
Nvidia said in a statement: "We evaluate a variety of products for our roadmap, so that we can be prepared to compete to the extent that governments allow."
"Everything we offer is with the full approval of the applicable authorities and designed solely for beneficial commercial use," it said.
The US Department of Commerce did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
FLASHPOINT
The extent to which China, which generated 13 per cent of Nvidia's revenue in the past financial year, can have access to cutting-edge AI chips is one of the biggest flashpoints in US-Sino trade tensions.
Nvidia only received permission in July to recommence sales of the H20. It was developed specifically for China after export restrictions were put in place in 2023, but company was abruptly ordered to stop sales in April.
Trump said last week he might allow Nvidia to sell a scaled-down version of its next-generation chip in China after announcing an unprecedented deal that will see Nvidia and rival AMD give the US government 15 per cent of revenue from sales of some advanced chips in China.
A new Nvidia chip for China might have "30 per cent to 50 per cent off", he suggested in an apparent reference to the chip's computing power, adding that the H20 was "obsolete".
US legislators, both Democratic and Republican, have worried that access to even scaled-down versions of flagship AI chips will impede US efforts to maintain its lead in artificial intelligence.
But Nvidia and others argue that it is important to retain Chinese interest in its chips - which work with Nvidia's software tools - so that developers do not completely switch over to offerings from rivals like Huawei.
Huawei has made great strides in chip development, with its latest models said to be on par with Nvidia in some aspects like computing power, though analysts say it lags in key areas such as software ecosystem support and memory bandwidth capabilities.
Complicating Nvidia's efforts to retain market share in China, Chinese state media have also in recent weeks alleged that the U.S firm's chips could pose security risks, and authorities have cautioned Chinese tech firms about purchasing the H20. Nvidia says its chips carry no backdoor risks.
Nvidia is also preparing to start delivering a separate new China-specific chip based on its Blackwell architecture and designed primarily for AI inference tasks, according to two other people familiar with those plans.
Reuters reported in May that this chip, currently dubbed the RTX6000D, will sell for less than the H20, reflecting weaker specifications and simpler manufacturing requirements.
The chip is designed to fall under thresholds set by the US government. It uses conventional GDDR memory and features memory bandwidth of 1,398 gigabytes per second, just below the 1.4 terabyte threshold established by restrictions introduced in April that led to the initial H20 ban.
Nvidia is set to deliver small batches of RTX6000D to Chinese clients in September, said one of the people.