The world’s most valuable chipmakers are far from giving up their desire to keep China as a major growth market. Nvidia appears to be putting together a new AI chip aimed at selling in China, citing an anonymous source.
The new chip, codenamed B30A, will be stronger than the H20 GPUs the company is currently permitted to sell to China, the report says, but its design is essentially single, unlike the dual-dye design used with the stronger B300 GPU. The B30A has similar features to the H20, including high-speed data transmission, NVLINK support, and high-bandwidth memory.
The development of the B30A is likely to be separate from another chip the company is said to be developing for sale domestically, Reuters reported.
“We are evaluating a variety of products for our roadmap, so we are ready to compete as much as the government allows. Everything we offer is designed only for beneficial commercial use, with full approval from the applicable authorities,” Nvidia said in an email.
The news cited its source saying that approval for the new chip is not at all certain as the Trump administration in recent weeks eased its stance on chip makers export high-performance AI chips to China.
Geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington are increasingly affected by the competition to develop AI, and critics argue that the US must maintain its lead by controlling the supply of the technology needed for China. However, Nvidia and his companions find themselves selling shovel equivalents during the gold rush, and argue that giving away China’s valuable markets to rivals like Huawei is equivalent to giving them completely.
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