The American technological giant Nvidia has announced to resume sales in China of a model of advanced fleas for artificial intelligence (AFP / I-HWA Cheng)
The American technological giant Nvidia announced Tuesday to resume sales in China from an advanced electronic flea model for artificial intelligence (AI), on the eve of a displacement of its CEO Jensen Huang in Beijing.
“Nvidia has filed requests to sell the NVIDIA H20 GPU again. The US government assured Nvidia that licenses would be granted and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,” the company said in a statement.
This announcement comes as Jensen Huang is due to attend Beijing on Wednesday at the opening ceremony of the third international exhibition of China supply chains, according to the CCTV State chain.
In May, he had described as “failure” the American restrictions on the export of sophisticated chips to China, decided by the United States under the presidency of Joe Biden, to slow down the development of advanced AI technologies and superordinators in this rival country.
“Local companies (Chinese, editor’s note) are very very talented and very determined, and the control of exports gave them the state of mind, the energy and the support of the government to accelerate their development,” Jensen Huang said at the Computex show in Taiwan.
Nvidia has developed the H20 chip-a less powerful version of its semiconductors for AI-specifically for export to China. But Donald Trump’s government has strengthened the demands for exporting these chips in April.
– “complicate the task of Huawei” –
The advisor to the American president, David Sacks, defended the change of policy on Tuesday, assuring the CNBC channel that the H20 chip was an “obsolete component” which was “far from representing what is best today”.
He justified the turnaround on the H20 chip by the “spectacular advances” of Huawei, the Chinese rival of Nvidia, which could potentially threaten the dominant position of the American giant.
China represents a crucial market for Nvidia, but the recent US export restrictions have intensified competition from local players like Huawei, considered a national champion.
“We don’t want to sell our most advanced technologies to China, but I think we want to at least complicate Huawei’s task a little,” said David Sacks.
He also specified that this decision was linked to current trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing, engaged in a particularly tense trade conflict.
The decision could be an attempt to coax Beijing, who criticized the American restrictions, describing them as unjust and designed to slow down its development.
– “Potential of the Chinese economy” –
Zhang Guobin, founder of the Chinese Specialized Website Eetrend.com, estimated that the resumption of sales of these semiconductors “will bring (in Nvidia) substantial growth of income, compensating for losses caused by the previous prohibition”.
This should also mitigate the impact of friction on the world supply chains of semiconductors, he told AFP.
But Chinese companies should remain concentrated in the future on the development of Chinese chips, he noted, recalling that “the Trump administration has been (…) subject to sudden policy changes, making it difficult to predict how long such an opening could last”.
Nvidia plans to open a research and development center (R&D) in Shanghai, the Financial Times revealed in May.
Jensen Huang went to China in April in the middle of customs duties launched by Donald Trump. He had met the mayor of Shanghai, Gong Zheng, to advance this R&D center project, according to this source.
He also maintained himself with Chinese Deputy Prime Minister He Lifeng, to whom he had said to appreciate “the potential of the Chinese economy”, according to a state media.
The growth of the Chinese economy has slowed slightly in the second quarter, according to official data published on Tuesday, but remains in accordance with forecasts, in particular thanks to vigorous exports.
China is confronted with several challenges to achieve its growth target “about 5%” for 2025, complicated by the commercial showdown hired by President Trump.
