Nvidia's China Ambitions: A New AI Chipset Emerges
Nvidia's vast ambitions in China appear far from over. Reportedly, an AI chipset targeting China is again underway under questionable U.S. export policies.
What's Cooking with this New GPU
Speculated to be an instance of Nvidia's new Blackwell architecture family of AI processors, this new GPU is therefore classified as interesting. Something quite high between $6,500-$8000 on the insider's perspective could be the amount. This is a considerably reduced estimate, considering that the H20 model that was recently blocked had been provided with estimates ranging from $10,000-$12,000.
Why the lower price. This new chip is supposed to have a few lesser specs and easier-to-manufacture designs. Reportedly, things underneath the hood are as follows:
- Most probably based on the server-grade RTX Pro 6000D GPU from Nvidia.
- Instead of the high-bandwidth memory, it is expected to go with conventional GDDR7 memory.
- Probably will not use the advanced CoWoS packaging technology of TSMC.
June could potentially see the start of mass production for this new chip.
Navigating a Challenging Landscape
Nvidia themselves have acknowledged they're exploring "limited" options. Until a new product design is settled and gets the green light from the U.S. government, a spokesperson for the company said, they are basically blocked out from entering China's huge $50 billion data center market.
It is suspected that this is not the first time Nvidia has reworked manufacture procedures to adapt its U.S.-interdicted products for China. Following the effective ban of the H20 chip in April, any plans for an H20 downgrade appear to have gone bust. Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO, said not long ago that the trade-in restrictions in the U.S. won't allow them to further modify their older Hopper architecture, which the H20 relies on.
Although its final name is under wraps-speculations abound for "6000D" or "B40"-it appears Nvidia may also be eyeing a separate Blackwell-based chip to China, potentially into production around September.
The Squeeze on Market Share
Historically, China has been a significant market for Nvidia, accounting for 13% of the company's sales in the last fiscal year. Still, the ongoing U.S. export restrictions seem to be weighing heavily on Nvidia. Reportedly, Nvidia's China market share is being taken by Huawei: before 2022, it had been 95%; now it has gone to around 50%.
Huang's caution is that more U.S. export control measures would push Chinese customers to Huawei in a further way. The banning of the H20 alone forced Nvidia to write off $5.5 billion in inventory and lose an estimated $15 billion in sales.
The recent export controls put maximum limits on the memory bandwidth of GPUs, which is quite crucial for AI jobs that require munching through staggering volumes of data. H20 had about 4 TB/sec. The new regulations are expected to limit it to somewhere between 1.7 and 1.8 TB/sec. The GDDR7-based upcoming GPU will supposedly be barely under the export control threshold at around 1.7 TB/sec.
It is a game of high stakes, innovation, and adaptation for Nvidia in an effort to hang on in one of the largest tech markets in the world.
