【Text by Observers Network, Chen Sijia】In recent years, the U.S. government has implemented a series of export restrictions on chips to China, attempting to curb the development of China's chip industry. However, U.S. tech companies have found that the U.S. containment and suppression cannot prevent the advancement of Chinese technology, and Chinese companies are actively trying to bypass the U.S.
According to a report by Hong Kong's South China Morning Post on September 28, NVIDIA's CEO Huang Renxun recently stated that China is only "a few nanoseconds" behind the U.S. in the chip field, and has great potential in chip R&D and manufacturing. He called on the U.S. government to allow U.S. tech companies to compete in markets such as China to "enhance U.S. influence."
Huang Renxun said in a podcast program released on the 26th that the chip industry is a "vibrant, entrepreneurial, high-tech modern industry," with abundant talent reserves and fierce internal competition in China, which gives it great potential in chip R&D and manufacturing. He said: "China lags behind the U.S. by a few nanoseconds, so we must compete."
Huang Renxun believes that the U.S. should allow its tech industry to compete globally, including in the Chinese market, thus "disseminating technology around the world" and "maximizing the economic success and geopolitical influence of the United States."
He also added that he believes China will remain open to foreign investment, saying that "foreign companies investing in China, competing in China, and interacting with each other form an active competition, which is in China's interest. They also hope to go out of China and participate in global competition."
NVIDIA CEO Huang Renxun, screenshot from video
With the rapid development of AI technology, NVIDIA's graphics processing unit (GPU) business has soared. However, in recent years, the U.S. government has imposed strict export controls to suppress the development of Chinese chips. Earlier this year, the U.S. government banned NVIDIA from exporting H20 chips to China until NVIDIA agreed to pay 15% of its sales in China to the U.S. government, after which the export license for the chip was restored.
The H20 is a "downgraded version" of NVIDIA's AI chips designed specifically for the Chinese market in compliance with U.S. export controls. Its performance is only 15%-30% of the flagship product H100, based on NVIDIA's older Hopper architecture.
However, facing U.S. pressure, Chinese companies are making efforts to launch domestic AI chips that can replace NVIDIA and capture the market share that NVIDIA once dominated. For example, Huawei recently announced the product iteration roadmap for Ascend AI chips over the next three years, using an integrated "super node + cluster" computing power solution to meet the continuously growing computing power needs.
The South China Morning Post pointed out that internet giants such as Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, and ByteDance have also increased their investments in chip R&D and design to gain greater autonomy and controllability in the supply chain.
On September 16 local time, Reuters reported exclusively that NVIDIA has launched several "downgraded special edition" chips for the Chinese market, but more and more Chinese buyers are unwilling to buy them. For example, the demand for NVIDIA's latest AI chip tailored for the Chinese market, RTX6000D, is weak, and its main large customers - multiple Chinese tech giants have refused to place orders.
In addition, NVIDIA also faces issues such as security vulnerabilities and monopoly risks.
On July 31, in order to safeguard the cybersecurity and data security of Chinese users, China questioned NVIDIA and required it to explain and submit relevant proof materials regarding the security risks of backdoors in the H20 computing chips sold to China. The new media account "Yuyuantan Tian" under China Central Television's media outlets published an article pointing out that the H20 chip is "not environmentally friendly, not advanced, and not safe," and is not a "good choice."
Last December 9, Chinese regulatory authorities investigated NVIDIA for suspected violations of the anti-monopoly law. Nearly a year later, on September 15, the State Administration for Market Regulation again issued a statement on its website, stating that NVIDIA violated the anti-monopoly law and decided to conduct further investigations according to law.
On September 17 local time, Huang Renxun responded to the recent further investigation by Chinese authorities on NVIDIA, stating that the U.S. needs "to ensure that people can access this (AI chip) technology from all over the world, including China." He said, "The progress of human society is not a zero-sum game... But I believe dialogue will solve it on its own."
Huang Renxun emphasized the importance of China's AI industry. He pointed out, "The Chinese market is very important and large. The tech industry is vibrant. We have been serving the Chinese market for 30 years."
Regarding the chip sales issue, Lin Jian, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated on September 18 that China has always opposed discriminatory practices against specific countries in trade, economic and technological issues. China is willing to maintain dialogue and cooperation with all parties to maintain the stability of the global supply chain.
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Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7555109941242806794/
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