AsianFin -- The recent report about China’s ban on purchase of Nvidia Corporation’s artificial intelligence (AI) chips sparks Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s unease.
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Huang said he is “disappointed” after the Financial Times on Wednesday reported China is banning domestic tech companies from purchasing an Nvidia chip model tailored for the Chinese market.China’s top internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) had reportedly ordered its top tech companies including TikTok parent company ByteDance and Alibaba Group not to buy Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D chip.
Asked about the aforementioned report, Huang said at a press conference on Wednesday that his company “can only be in service of a market if the country wants us to be.”
“We probably contributed more to the China market than most countries have. And I’m disappointed with what I see,” said Huang. “But they have larger agendas to work out between China and the United States, and I’m understanding of that.”
Huang, as usual, urged the Trump administration to remove restrictions on China. He told BBC that the U.S. needs "to make sure that people can access this technology from all over the world, including China." "The advance of human society is not a zero-sum game," he added.
Huang on June 12 disclosed Nvidia would exclude the Chinese market from its revenue and profit forecast following the tough U.S. trade restrictions on chip sales to China. Huang on Wednesday said the financial guidance excluding China Nvidia is providing is because “that’s largely going to be within the discussions of the United States government and Chinese government.”
Huang said heexpects to discuss the latest developments with U.S. President Donald Trump at a state banquet hosted by the British government. Roundtable. Multiple top U.S. tech leaders, including Huang and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, are also expected to participate in roundtable events on Thursday at Chequers, the British leader’s rural retreat, during Trump's visit to Britain.
Nvidia management three weeks ago expressed upbeat on performance in the Chinese market despite tepid guidance they offered that didn’t factor sales of H20, the most advanced AI chip that the country is allowed to sell in China.
China is estimated to bring about $50 billion of opportunity for Nvidia this year, Huang told analysts on an earnings call on August 27. “If we were able to address it with competitive products and if it’s [opportunity worth of] $50 billion this year, you would expect it to grow, say, 50% per year as as the rest of the world’s AI AI market is growing as well,” Huang said when asked about the long-term prospects of the China opportunity.
As part of efforts to address the Chinese market, Huang floated the possibility of approval from the U.S. government to sell Nvidia’s latest Blackwell-architecture chips. “The the opportunity for us to bring Blackwell to the China market is a real possibility,” Huang said. “And so we just have to keep advocating the the sensibility of and the importance of American tech companies to be able to lead and win the AI race and help make the American tech stack the global standard.”
