Huang Renxun makes a surprise visit to TSMC, saying new chip exports to China will be decided by Washington

CEO of NVIDIA, Huang Renxun, made an unexpected visit to Taiwan on Friday. As the world's most valuable company, NVIDIA is facing escalating friction between the US and China over the access to AI chips.

Huang Renxun unexpectedly visited Taiwan on August 22 (Friday), staying only for a few hours and meeting with senior executives of TSMC. The focus of attention was their new product cooperation plan.

TSMC is NVIDIA's most important chip foundry. According to CNA, when Huang Renxun arrived, he stated that NVIDIA has six new chips that will be produced in TSMC's factories, and this visit is to express gratitude to those who have worked hard for him.

This is the third time this year that Huang Renxun has visited Taiwan. On Friday, he first gave a special lecture at the TSMC headquarters in Hsinchu, then visited the couple of TSMC founder Chung-Mou Chang in the afternoon, and had dinner with TSMC chairman Wei Jiaze and his team in the evening, and left Taiwan that same night.

Recently, there were reports that the Trump administration hopes to obtain TSMC's shares in exchange for promised investment subsidies, causing its stock price to fall temporarily. On Friday, Reuters cited White House officials as stating that the US government is currently not considering taking equity in TSMC.

When asked about the issue in Taipei, Huang Renxun said that TSMC is one of the best companies in human history, and anyone who wants to buy TSMC stocks is a smart person, "TSMC is a very good investment."

Can the iterative product of H20 be sold to China

Reuters reported this week that NVIDIA is developing a new chip tentatively named B30A, which is based on its latest Blackwell architecture, and its performance will be more powerful than the H20 chip. When asked about the B30A chip, Huang Renxun said that they are negotiating with the US government on the subsequent products of the H20 chip for export to China, but he added, "This is not a decision we can make. It depends on the US government."

President Trump opened the door earlier this month for the possibility of selling more advanced NVIDIA chips in China, and reached an agreement with NVIDIA and AMD, under which the US government will receive a 15% share from part of the sales revenue of advanced chips in China.

NVIDIA was only allowed to resume sales of the H20 chip in July this year. The H20 is a "downgraded" AI chip designed specifically for the Chinese market in late 2023 to comply with US export controls, with performance being 15%-30% of the flagship product H100, but it accounted for 80% of NVIDIA's revenue in China. In April this year, the Trump administration tightened licenses, prohibiting NVIDIA from selling the H20 chip in China.

Huang Renxun again thanked the Trump administration for approving the H20 license, saying that NVIDIA's Chinese customers are expanding their artificial intelligence business, and the demand is very large, and it is important that the H20 can be sold in China.

He also mentioned that recently, the Chinese side "asked some questions about security backdoors in our chips. We have clearly stated that the H20 does not have any security backdoors."

Sources: DW

Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1841299115308039/

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