2 days ago
China Frets Over Nvidia H20 AI Chips, Nvidia Denies Any Backdoors or Tracking Hardware
Now that Nvidia finally has US approval to sell its H20 chips to China, the country is voicing concerns about the AI hardware. It's the latest move in a long-running struggle between the US and China over China's access to modern technology. The announcement is surprising, considering that China's appetite for H20 AI chips is enormous.
'When a type of chip is neither environmentally friendly, nor advanced, nor safe, as consumers, we certainly have the option not to buy it,' Yuyuan Tantian, a China Central Television-affiliated account, wrote on WeChat according to Reuters.
The post also suggests that Nvidia may have built a backdoor into its H20 that could, among other things, shut down the chip — in other words a kill switch. Rather than provide its own evidence that the H20 chip is a threat, China seems to want Nvidia to prove that it isn't one. Adding to China's worries is a bill in the Senate that could lead to tracking hardware being attached to chips bound for certain regions and organizations. China's Cyberspace Administration (CAC) brought in Nvidia execs to get details, but the WeChat post suggests that China still has doubts.
Credit: Nvidia
Nvidia, meanwhile, is having none of this. It responded by telling CNBC that 'cybersecurity is critically important to us. Nvidia does not have 'backdoors' in our chips that would give anyone a remote way to access or control them.'
China's concerns about the H20 are likely part of the overall trade tensions between it and the Trump administration. Tariffs (and the threat of them) played a major role in those tensions this year. Although the US has placed tariffs in place that affect a wide swath of products and regions, the H20 chip has endured a particularly public tug-of-war. The US put the brakes on H20 sales to the US earlier out of concern that the chips give China's military technological capabilities that the US has long sought to hamper.
Nvidia reportedly has an inventory as large as 700,000 H20 chips ready for sale to businesses in China and ordered more from TSMC, which manufactures the AI chips. But a report by the BBC suggests that Nvidia will pay the US 15% of its revenues from China in a remarkable deal that, in the eyes of some experts, could run afoul of the Constitution. AMD also has apparently agreed to this deal, making it that much more of a dramatic change in US policy.
