[Text/Observer Network Qi Qian] Recently, the United States has set its sights on NVIDIA's "special version for China" chips. It was previously reported that after the Trump administration threatened to cancel it, NVIDIA is reworking on developing custom chips for China. Even so, U.S. lawmakers are still unsatisfied. According to an exclusive report by Reuters on May 5, there are消息称, a U.S. lawmaker plans to propose a bill in the coming weeks requiring NVIDIA chips to have a positioning system embedded.

The report said that the move to monitor chip locations has gained support from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers. This initiative targets China with the aim of addressing what they claim is NVIDIA's "large-scale export of chips to China, violating U.S. export control laws."

Bill Foster, a Democratic member of Congress from Illinois, plans to propose a bill in the coming weeks instructing U.S. regulators to establish rules in two key areas: tracking the location of chips after sale to ensure compliance with export control licenses; and preventing chips from being activated without appropriate export control licenses. This bill would give the U.S. Department of Commerce six months to develop relevant regulations.

U.S. Representative Bill Foster, Democrat from Illinois

Foster claimed that the technology to track the location of chips after sale already exists, with much of it already built into NVIDIA's chips.

Without providing any evidence, Foster hyped up the issue by claiming, "There are reliable reports indicating large-scale smuggling activities of chips." He boasted, "This is not an imagined future problem," before repeating old claims, slandering that China is "planning to design weapons using large arrays of chips."

The report stated that Foster's proposal has received bipartisan support. He claimed, "We have received enough feedback, and I believe we can now have more detailed discussions with actual chip suppliers and ask them, 'How will you actually achieve this?'"

Reuters reported that NVIDIA declined to comment on the above story.

As early as October 2022, the U.S. government had implemented a series of chip export restrictions, which were subsequently tightened to prevent American semiconductor giants like NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel from selling their most advanced chips to China, forcing these companies to find workarounds. Previously, NVIDIA developed a customized H20 chip for the Chinese market to comply with U.S. export regulations, which began accepting pre-orders in February last year.

According to previous reports by Reuters, the H20, as an "AI chip specifically designed for China," is slower than other NVIDIA chips in training AI models but remains competitive in inference compared to other chips.

Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has continued to promise to crack down on U.S. AI chip exports to China.

In the report, Reuters mentioned that analysis company SemiAnalysis said Americans believe that the rise of China's DeepSeek poses a strong challenge to the U.S., making further tightening of chip exports to China even more urgent. The New York Times also published an article stating that China's success in the AI field made America feel uneasy after DeepSeek emerged.

On April 15, the U.S. Department of Commerce halted the export of NVIDIA's "reduced-version special version for China" H20 chip, AMD's MI308 chip, and similar AI chips to China under the pretext of "complying with national and economic security interests." There are also reports that NVIDIA is reworking on developing custom chips for China. Samples of the new chips could be released as early as June.

On April 17, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang arrived in Beijing "Yuyuan Tan Tian"

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has consistently opposed restrictions on exports to China. In March, when asked about export controls to China, Huang pointed out that about half of AI researchers worldwide come from China, many working in American laboratories.

During his visit to China in April, Huang emphasized that NVIDIA will continue to optimize its product lineup in compliance with regulatory requirements and remain steadfastly committed to serving the Chinese market. On April 30, Huang reiterated that he hopes the Trump administration will change the chip export rules, stating, "The world has fundamentally changed," and China is "not behind" in the field of artificial intelligence.

American consumer news and business channel CNBC reminded that the strategic impact of the new U.S. regulation halting NVIDIA's "special version for China" chips far outweighs the financial impact. NVIDIA dominates the AI system semiconductor market, and sales to China are crucial for its future. NVIDIA believes that if it exits the Chinese market, its chip sales business will be handed over to Huawei, a Chinese AI chip manufacturer, which will begin challenging its global sales share.

Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at technology consulting firm Moor Insights & Strategy, said, "This cuts off NVIDIA's access to a key market, and they will lose momentum in China. Ultimately, Chinese companies will turn to Huawei."

A Foreign Ministry spokesperson previously responded, pointing out that China has repeatedly expressed its firm stance on the U.S. malicious blockade and suppression of China's semiconductor industry. By politicizing, universalizing, and instrumentalizing economic and technological issues, the U.S. continues to tighten export controls on Chinese chips, coercing other countries 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.

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Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7500970971516404264/

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