Nvidia is working on a new Chinese AI chip that is more powerful than the H20 model it currently sells, according to people familiar with the plan, Reuters reported. The tip is based on the company’s latest Blackwell designs.
Last week, US President Donald Trump proposed that more sophisticated Nvidia chips could eventually be sold in China. However, approval is uncertain as US officials remain vigilant about giving Beijing too much access to American AI technology.
The new chip, internally called the B30A, is expected to use a single-die design. This means that all the core parts of the chip are built into one of silicon, rather than splitting into two dies like Nvidia’s flagship B300. Those familiar with the details say this is likely to give the B30A about half the power of the B300, but it’s still stronger than the H20.
Like the H20, the B30A features high-bandwidth memory and NVLink, NVIDIA’s technology for quickly moving data between processors. Although the final spec is not locked, the company hopes to send samples to Chinese customers as soon as next month for testing.
In a statement on China’s strategy, Nvidia said: “We are evaluating the various products on our roadmap so we are ready to compete to the extent permitted by the government. Everything we offer is designed specifically for beneficial commercial use, with full approval from the applicable authorities.”
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick told CNBC that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is seeking approval. “Of course he wants to sell new chips to China,” Lutnick said, adding that Huang often sells ideas directly to the president. “The president listens to our great tech companies and he decides how he wants to play it. But the fact that Jensen is pitching a new chip should not be surprised.”
US-China trade tensions are rising with Nvidia chips
The question of how much access China should have with AI chips has become one of the main points of tensions between Washington and Beijing. China accounted for 13% of Nvidia’s revenue last year.
Nvidia resumed H20 sales in July after US regulators suddenly stopped sales in April. The H20 was designed in 2023 to meet export regulations restricting chip sales to China.
Donald Trump recently said that Nvidia may be able to sell scaled versions of the next-generation chips in China. As part of a broader deal, Nvidia and rival AMD agreed to give the US government 15% of revenue from certain chip sales. Trump also calls the H20 “outdated,” suggesting that the new China-only chip can deliver the computing power of top models to “30% to 50% off” (sic).
A bipartisan Washington lawmaker has argued that even weaker versions of AI chips could give China an edge in key areas. Nvidia and others said that if they stop selling to China, customers will rely on local suppliers like Huawei. The latter’s latest chip model is said to rival Nvidia in raw computing power, but analysts say Huawei continues to track software performance and memory speed.
China’s state media is putting more pressure on them by warning that Nvidia’s chips could bear security risks, and regulators are warning Chinese companies against H20 purchases. Nvidia denied that its hardware poses such a threat.
Another chip in the work
Alongside the B30A, Nvidia is preparing special products for the Chinese market. This is also based on Blackwell Architecture, but focuses on AI inference tasks. According to sources, the RTX6000D chip is cheaper than the H20 due to its simple design and low specifications.
Reuters previously reported that the RTX6000D is designed to run under the threshold set by the US export stenosis. It uses standard GDDR memory and runs at 1,398 gigabytes per second. This is slightly below the cap per 1.4 terabyte per 1.4 terabyte set by the new limits in April.
A small shipment of the RTX6000D is expected to contact Chinese customers in September.
(Photo: Boliviainteliente)
See: Nvidia aims to solve AI problems in many languages
Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out the AI & Big Data Expo in Amsterdam, California and London. The comprehensive event will be held in collaboration with other major events, including the Intelligent Automation Conference, Blockx, Digital Transformation Week, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.
Check out other upcoming Enterprise Technology events and webinars with TechForge here.
