In recent years, the United States' regulatory policies on the chip industry have gradually strengthened, which has had a huge impact on global chip companies. Under the ban of the United States**, many companies have to face difficulties such as layoffs and business stagnation. In particular, U.S. chip companies, whose market share has been severely reduced, have had to band together to seek the lifting of the ban. However, the ban has not been lifted as scheduled, but has continued to expand. This led to the rapid spread of layoffs in American chip companies, even affecting British companies.
According to the official announcement of Graphcore, a British AI chip design company, they had to take a series of actions to deal with the restrictions of chip control in the United States. First, they took measures to lay off employees and laid off most of their employees. Secondly, they ceased their business in the Chinese market. An internal GraphCore spokesperson said it had shut down operations in Norway, Japan and South Korea, while the size of its operations in China had been scaled back due to US restrictions.
Graphcore is a company focused on AI chips that produce intelligent processing unit ipus, which puts them in direct competition with Nvidia. Since its inception, Graphcore has received investment and invested heavily in the development and production of AI chips to challenge NVIDIA's market dominance. Due to the over-reliance of many companies on Nvidia, Graphcore was once highly expected to completely replace Nvidia one day in the future and break the monopoly pattern of the ** chain. Graphcore is particularly focused on the Chinese market, where they see a huge demand for AI chips. However, the advent of chip control in the United States has forced them to change their original opportunistic strategy.
China is the largest contributor to Graphcore's estimates, accounting for 25% of total sales. This shows how much Graphcore attaches importance to the Chinese market. However, the U.S. chip control has led to an unexpected counterattack, and its AI chips are also facing restrictions on sales in the Chinese market. As a result, Graphcore had no choice but to disrupt its China operations and begin laying off employees.
The U.S. chip control has had a huge impact on many companies around the world, further prompting them to cut costs, lay off employees and other responses. However, in terms of practical impact, the US chip ban is not as severe as imagined. Taking Nvidia as an example, although the expansion of the U.S. chip restriction policy has also limited Nvidia's special version of the chip, Nvidia's overall revenue has not shrunk. This is mainly due to the fact that many Chinese manufacturers have made large stockpiles, including one company that has been stockpiling for more than 18 months. Pre-orders are already very large, so Nvidia is not affected by the restrictions. In order to minimize the impact of the ban, Nvidia also confirmed that it will continue to launch weakened versions of the chip, continuing in the Chinese market**.
This means that American companies not only sell low-end chips to us, but also continue to make profits in the Chinese market. At the same time, the U.S. chip control policy has also weakened rivals such as Nvidia and other U.S. companies. In other words, in the field of artificial intelligence in the future, the ** chain may once again be locked in American chip companies. It can be seen that the chip control policy of the United States is not as simple as it seems.
The intensification of chip control policies in the United States has affected global companies, and layoffs and business stagnation have become the norm. Graphcore, a UK-based company, has had to fight back against US chip controls, reducing headcount and halting operations in the Chinese market. However, from a practical point of view, the US chip ban has not had the huge impact imagined. Some companies, such as Nvidia, are still able to cope with the restrictions and even find new sales channels. There may be more complex considerations behind the US chip control policy, and we should keep thinking and observing about this.
(This article has a total of 2508 words).