On the 11th local time, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Raimondo said in an interview that Biden is discussing the details of the company's three new artificial intelligence chips developed for China with U.S. chipmaker Nvidia.
Nvidia responded that it is working with the United States** to follow its clear rules and seek to "provide compliant data center solutions to customers around the world."
Raimondo said in an interview: "Given that most AI chips will be used in commercial applications, Nvidia should offer ** AI chips to China." ”
But she stressed that the United States cannot allow Nvidia to send China's "most complex and highest-processing power" AI chips in case China has the ability to train its cutting-edge AI models.
Raimondo said she spoke with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang a week ago, and that Huang was "very clear," saying he "doesn't want to break the rules."
She noted that the U.S. Department of Commerce is working with Nvidia because "they [Nvidia] want to do the right thing and obviously want to sell as many chips as possible."
Raimondo. Nvidia, which has more than 90 percent of China's $7 billion AI semiconductor market, began developing chips for the Chinese market after the United States tightened export controls to stop the export of chips designed for China earlier.
Huang told reporters in Singapore last week that the new processors would comply with stricter chip export restrictions announced by the U.S. Commerce Department in October.
The Commerce Department declined to comment on whether it plans to restrict Nvidia's new chips, but reiterated that it will constantly update the rules to respond to evolving threats.
Last week, Raimondo continued the hype of the "Chinese chip threat" at the Reagan Defense Forum in California, where she called Nvidia as if the company "dared" to take some steps to redesign a chip that would allow China to continue its artificial intelligence project. ”
Huang said last week that the company is working closely with the U.S. to continue to comply "flawlessly" with regulations to ensure that new chips for the Chinese market comply with export restrictions.
On December 8, in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, Jensen Huang attended the ** roundtable.
According to reports, Nvidia's development of the next generation of three AI chips for the Chinese market and new US regulations is not going well. One of the most powerful chips, the H20, was revealed to be unable to meet the performance level required for export licenses and will be postponed. Of the other two chips, the L20 will be released as originally planned, while the situation with the L2 is not yet known.
Raimondo said the U.S. is studying the details of three new AI accelerators that Nvidia has developed for China. "We check every specification of every new chip, obviously to make sure it doesn't violate export controls. ”
Nvidia warned at its November earnings conference** that it expects sales in China to fall sharply in the fourth quarter due to new U.S. regulations. Analysts believe that the tighter chip export restrictions announced by the United States in October could create opportunities for Nvidia's Chinese rivals to enter the market.
Chinese chip designers, including Tencent Holdings, are pitching their own AI chips, and smaller players such as Hyangon Information Technology and startup iluvatar Corex are also jumping on the bandwagon, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. Huawei's Ascend 910B is also widely considered to be an improvement in terms of computing power.