Nvidia said to launch new AI chip for China

Nvidia, the world’s largest company by value, is reportedly developing a new artificial intelligence (AI) chip based on its flagship product B200 for the China market.

The mass production of the new chip, which may be called B20, will commence later this year while shipments will start in the second quarter of next year, Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The report said Nvidia will work with Inspur, one of its distributors in mainland China. However, Inspur said it has not started any business and cooperation related to B20 as of now. It said the Reuters report is not true.

The Reuters report also said the B20 will be designed in a way to avoid breaking the United States’ export controls.

But it’s unclear whether Nvidia can really launch the B20 in the end, as Washington may strengthen its chip export ban.

Citing a research note published by Jefferies analysts, QZ.com said it’s highly likely that the H20 chip will be banned for sale to China when the US Commerce Department does the annual review of its export controls in October.

The report said the ban could happen in three ways: through a “product-specific ban, lowering the computing power cap, and/or putting a cap on memory capacity.”

Besides, it said the US may consider extending its export controls on chips sold to other Asian countries, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand – or extending the controls to overseas Chinese companies, although these would be harder to implement.

The report came after the Wall Street Journal on July 2 exposed an underground network that is smuggling A100, which has been banned for sale to China since October 2022, to mainland China.

According to the report, some middlemen set up research institute