[Text/Observer Network Xiong Chaoyi] Targeting China, U.S. President Trump has already initiated disputes in the trade sector, and in the technology sector, his administration has not stopped. The latest example is that on April 15th local time, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that Nvidia's H20 chip, AMD's MI308 chip, and similar AI chips need licenses to be exported to China.

The Wall Street Journal reported on April 17th local time that this latest chip export restriction by the U.S. has shaken global markets. This move will prevent Nvidia and AMD from supplying AI chips worth billions of dollars to China, exposing the "dual ambitions" of containing China in both the technology and trade sectors, which is also the clearest signal sent so far by the Trump administration.

However, the Wall Street Journal pointed out that from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's recent visit to China and his relevant remarks, it can be seen that Nvidia has not abandoned the Chinese market. The report also cited sources as saying that Nvidia privately opposes any new restrictions and stated that China has been able to produce some chips at the same level as its "China-specific version" H20 chip.

On April 17th, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang arrived in Beijing. "Yuyuan Tan Tian".

On April 15th, American chip manufacturer Nvidia issued a notice stating that the U.S. government informed them on April 9th that their H20 chips needed a license to be exported to China, and later informed them on April 14th that these regulations would be implemented indefinitely. The notice mentioned that this new regulation would affect approximately $5.5 billion in quarterly costs for the company, involving inventory, purchase commitments, and related reserves for the H20 chips.

Another semiconductor giant, AMD, also warned on April 16th that due to the recent restrictions imposed by the Trump administration on exporting advanced chips to China, the company expects to record up to $800 million in impairment charges, which are related to inventory, purchase commitments, and reserve provisions, consistent with what Nvidia listed.

Due to uncertainty, on April 16th, all chip stocks fell across the board in the U.S. stock market. AMD and ASML fell more than 7%, Nvidia fell more than 6%, TSMC and Intel fell more than 3%, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 4.1%.

The Wall Street Journal believes that the U.S.' latest containment action, to some extent, is related to DeepSeek's (DeepSeek) surprising breakthrough in building powerful models with lower computing power. Although these policy changes only affect a relatively small part of Nvidia and AMD's businesses, they crush any hope of unimpeded sales of chips to China in the future, such as Nvidia being unable to circumvent U.S. sales restrictions by adjusting chip designs.

The report noted that just days after the U.S. released the new restrictions, on April 17th, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang arrived in Beijing at the invitation of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade. Three months ago, Huang Renxun had expressed a willingness to continue cooperating with China during his visit.

"The Chinese market is very important to us," said Jensen Huang, who usually wears black leather jackets, breaking with tradition by wearing a suit and tie while in China: "The technical strength of China's industrial sector is amazing."

In response to the U.S. government's decision to impose export restrictions on Nvidia's H20 chips to China, Huang Renxun stated that the strengthened U.S. chip export controls have had a significant impact on Nvidia's business. He also expressed that Nvidia will continue to optimize its product system in compliance with regulatory requirements and serve the Chinese market unwaveringly.

On April 17th, according to the Financial Times of the UK, Huang Renxun also met with DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng in Beijing on the same day to discuss how to design next-generation chips for China to meet customer needs and regulatory requirements from both the U.S. and China. A spokesperson for Nvidia said that the company regularly meets with high-level government officials to discuss technological development.

As early as October 2022, the U.S. government had already implemented a series of chip export restriction measures, which were continuously tightened thereafter, to prevent major U.S. semiconductor giants like Nvidia, AMD, and Intel from selling their most advanced chips in China, forcing these companies to find workarounds. Previously, Nvidia had developed the H20 series of chips specifically for the Chinese market to comply with U.S. export regulations, and began accepting orders in February last year.

Reuters reported that as "China-specific AI chips", the H20 is not as fast as other chips produced by Nvidia in training AI models, but it is competitive in the inference phase compared to other chips. Analysts said that in the fiscal year ending January this year, Nvidia's H20 chip sales amounted to approximately $12 billion, accounting for about 70% of the company's sales in China.

The U.S. government's attention to Nvidia's H20 chips dates back a long time. During the Biden administration, U.S. policymakers had been closely watching this. Subsequently, discussions continued during the Trump administration. The Trump administration increasingly believed that new breakthroughs in the AI field mainly came from inference technology, which enables AI models to be applied in real-world scenarios. Sources revealed that Nvidia's H20 chip has shown outstanding performance in such applications.

The Wall Street Journal pointed out that if the relevant ban is ultimately not exempted by the U.S., the demand for domestic alternatives in China may surge. Citigroup analysts noted in a report on April 16th that initially, cloud service providers in China planned to use H20 chips to meet 50% of their AI accelerator needs in 2025, but now they may turn to products from Huawei and Cambricon.

Nvidia's AI chips are widely deployed globally. The Wall Street Journal

Analyst Patrick Moorhead (Patrick Moorhead) of technology consulting firm Moor Insights & Strategy said: "This cuts off Nvidia's access to a key market. They will lose momentum in China. Eventually, Chinese enterprises will turn to Huawei."

The report argues that China will continue to promote breakthroughs in its indigenous chip industry in the future, break away from reliance on U.S. technology, and vigorously promote the popularization of domestic alternative solutions. The Wall Street Journal quoted a source as saying that Nvidia has privately strongly resisted new U.S. control measures and assessed that China actually has the capability to produce chips at the same level as the H20.

In February, foreign media reported that the Trump administration was formulating stricter semiconductor restrictions and pressuring key allies to increase restrictions on China's chip industry, which foretells that the U.S. administration will expand the technological restrictions imposed by the previous administration on China.

In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian once responded that China has repeatedly expressed its firm stance on the U.S. malicious blockade and suppression of China's semiconductor industry. The U.S. politicizes, generalizes security issues, and instrumentalizes economic and technological issues, constantly increasing export restrictions on Chinese chips and coercing allies to suppress China's semiconductor industry. Such actions hinder the development of the global semiconductor industry and will ultimately backfire, harming both others and itself.

This article is an exclusive article by Observer Network and cannot be reprinted without permission.

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7494655064959681050/

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