Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO, announced the provision of sample versions for two new AI chips tailored for the Chinese market. This strategic decision aims to safeguard the company's stronghold in China amidst challenges posed by U.S. export limitations, ensuring its continued market leadership.
"We're sampling it with customers now. Both of them comply with the regulations without a license. We're looking forward to customer feedback on it", Huang added in an interview after releasing Nvidia's quarterly results. "We're expecting that we're going to go compete for business, and hopefully we can serve the market successfully".
As reported by the chip industry newsletter SemiAnalysis, Nvidia intends to introduce three chips H20, L20, and L2 specifically targeted for the Chinese market. These chips incorporate Nvidia's cutting-edge AI capabilities, although with reduced computational power, to adhere to the updated U.S. regulations, as analyzed by the newsletter's examination of the chips' specifications.
Nvidia has commenced accepting pre-orders for the H20 chip, deemed the most potent among the trio tailored for the Chinese market. Distributors of the company have set the price of the H20 chip equivalent to that of a competing product from Huawei. Initially slated for release in November, the H20 chip experienced delays due to challenges encountered by server manufacturers in integrating the chip, as reported.
Following the tightening of export control measures by the U.S. government in October, Nvidia's operations in China faced setbacks, including constraints on shipping advanced Nvidia chips to the country. "This last quarter, our business significantly declined as we stopped shipping in the marketplace (for China)", Huang said during the earnings call.