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Xinxi reported on February 4 that according to foreign media citing people familiar with the matter, Nvidia has begun to accept pre-orders from distributors for China's **AI chip H20 GPU in recent weeks, priced at 120,000 1$50,000 (about $8.)6 110,000 RMB), slightly lower than the selling price of about 120,000 yuan for Huawei's AI chip Ascend 910B.
According to Taiwan media reports, Nvidia's flagship graphics card RTX 4090 has a sweeping wave in Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea and other places, seriously in short supply, ** up 60% from the listing more than a year ago, because it can be sold in Chinese mainland at 3 times the price.
Among them, H20 is the most powerful of the three GPUs developed by Nvidia for the Chinese market after the United States expanded its high-end export restrictions to China in October last year, with lower computing power than its flagship AI chips H100 and H800; The RTX 4090 is designed to work with game graphics, but it can also be used for AI model training, which is quite popular.
Dealers have told customers that they will be able to start delivering H20 products in small batches in the first quarter of this year and in bulk deliveries starting in the second quarter, the sources said. Some distributors have begun to advertise large price increases for about 110,000 yuan ($15,320); In comparison, the Ascend 910B is priced at about 120,000 yuan.
It is said that the H20 server provided by the dealer is pre-configured with 8 AI chips, and the price is 1.4 million yuan. By comparison, a server with eight H800 chips was priced at 2 million yuan when it was launched a year ago.
In terms of specifications, the H20 is not as capable as the Huawei Ascend 910B in some key areas, such as its FP32 performance is less than half that of the 910B. However, in terms of chip-to-chip data transmission, the H20 seems to have an advantage over the Ascend 910B, which means that when a large number of chips are placed in the data center and operate as a system, the H20 is still quite competitive with the Ascend 910B.
According to foreign media reports last month, Nvidia plans to start mass production of H20 in the second quarter of this year. The chip was originally scheduled to be released in November last year, but plans were delayed, with sources citing the postponement due to server makers having problems integrating chips.
Nvidia also plans to launch two other chips for the Chinese market, the L20 and L2, and the current status of these two chip launches is uncertain. None of these three chips appear on NVIDIA's official website.
Since the announcement of the new U.S. restrictions, the RTX 4090, which is lower than data center products**, has a hotter performance and is usually available at computer DIY stores and retailers, has become a hot item across Asia.
According to Taiwanese media, citing the store owner of Guanghua Shopping Mall in Taipei, China, the graphics card can be sold for 3 times the price when it is brought to Hong Kong, China or other mainland cities. Taiwanese board practitioners and Singaporean computer parts manufacturers have confirmed that RTX 4090 is indeed in short supply.
When the RTX 4090 first hit the market less than a year ago, it had an official list price of $1,599 (about $4.).NT$90,000, 120,000 yuan), after October last year, the price in retail stores was as high as 2,541 US dollars (equivalent to about 7.).NT$90,000, 180,000 RMB).
In order to cope with the rush to buy, Guanghua mall retailers require buyers who want to buy RTX 4090 to purchase a complete hardware system, but some people still directly buy more than 20 sets of computers, just to dismantle the chips inside and resell them for profit. A set of computers equipped with RTX 4090 can be sold for $4,500 (equivalent to about NT$140,000, 3.).20,000 yuan), which was swept away.
At present, high-end RTX 4090 products are in short supply, and with the launch of H20 GPUs, its acceptance in the Chinese market has attracted much attention, which will have an impact on Nvidia's performance in the new year and the pattern of China's AI chip market.
Before the U.S. restrictions, Nvidia dominated China's AI chip market with more than 90% of the market. But it is facing increasing competition from its homegrown rivals.
The RTX 4090's Asian sales and H20 pre-orders also highlight the difficulties faced by the United States in trying to stop high-end chips from entering China** and slow down the development of advanced AI technology in China.