China Urges Firms To Avoid Nvidia H20 Chips After Trump Resumes Sales (yahoo.com) 43
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Beijing has urged local companies to avoid using Nvidia's H20 processors, particularly for government-related purposes, complicating the chipmaker's return to China after the Trump administration reversed an effective US ban on such sales. Over the past few weeks, Chinese authorities have sent notices to a range of firms discouraging use of the less-advanced semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The guidance was particularly strong against the use of H20s for any government or national security-related work by state enterprises or private companies, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is sensitive. The letters didn't, however, constitute an outright ban on H20 use, according to the people. Industry analysts broadly agree that Chinese companies still covet those chips, which perform quite well in certain crucial AI applications. President Donald Trump said Monday that the processor "still has a market" in the Asian country despite also calling it "obsolete."
Beijing's stance could limit Trump's ability to turn his export control about-face into a windfall for government coffers, a deal that highlighted his administration's transactional approach to national security policies long treated as nonnegotiable. Still, Chinese companies may not be ready to jump ship to local semiconductors. "Chips from domestic manufacturers are improving dramatically in quality, but they might not be as versatile for specific workloads that China's domestic AI industry hopes to focus on," said Homin Lee, a senior macro strategist at Lombard Odier in Singapore. Lee added that he anticipates "strong" demand for the chips the Trump administration is allowing Nvidia and AMD to sell.
Rosenblatt Securities analyst Kevin Cassidy said he doesn't anticipate that Nvidia's processor sales to China will be affected because "Chinese companies are going to want to use the best chips available." Nvidia and AMD's chips are superior to local alternatives, he said. Beijing asked companies about that issue in some of its letters, according to one of the people, posing questions such as why they buy Nvidia H20 chips over local versions, whether that's a necessary choice given domestic options, and whether they've found any security concerns in the Nvidia hardware. The notices coincide with state media reports that cast doubt on the security and reliability of H20 processors. Chinese regulators have raised those concerns directly with Nvidia, which has repeatedly denied that its chips contain such vulnerabilities.
The Financial Times reported that some Chinese companies are planning to decrease orders of Nvidia chips in response to the letters. Right now, the people said, China's most stringent chip guidance is limited to sensitive applications, a situation that bears similarities to the way Beijing restricted Tesla vehicles and Apple iPhones in certain institutions and locations over security concerns. China's government also at one point barred the use of Micron Technology Inc. chips in critical infrastructure. It's possible that Beijing may extend its heavier-handed Nvidia and AMD guidance to a wider range of settings, according to one person with direct knowledge of the deliberations, who said that those conversations are in early stages.
Beijing's stance could limit Trump's ability to turn his export control about-face into a windfall for government coffers, a deal that highlighted his administration's transactional approach to national security policies long treated as nonnegotiable. Still, Chinese companies may not be ready to jump ship to local semiconductors. "Chips from domestic manufacturers are improving dramatically in quality, but they might not be as versatile for specific workloads that China's domestic AI industry hopes to focus on," said Homin Lee, a senior macro strategist at Lombard Odier in Singapore. Lee added that he anticipates "strong" demand for the chips the Trump administration is allowing Nvidia and AMD to sell.
Rosenblatt Securities analyst Kevin Cassidy said he doesn't anticipate that Nvidia's processor sales to China will be affected because "Chinese companies are going to want to use the best chips available." Nvidia and AMD's chips are superior to local alternatives, he said. Beijing asked companies about that issue in some of its letters, according to one of the people, posing questions such as why they buy Nvidia H20 chips over local versions, whether that's a necessary choice given domestic options, and whether they've found any security concerns in the Nvidia hardware. The notices coincide with state media reports that cast doubt on the security and reliability of H20 processors. Chinese regulators have raised those concerns directly with Nvidia, which has repeatedly denied that its chips contain such vulnerabilities.
The Financial Times reported that some Chinese companies are planning to decrease orders of Nvidia chips in response to the letters. Right now, the people said, China's most stringent chip guidance is limited to sensitive applications, a situation that bears similarities to the way Beijing restricted Tesla vehicles and Apple iPhones in certain institutions and locations over security concerns. China's government also at one point barred the use of Micron Technology Inc. chips in critical infrastructure. It's possible that Beijing may extend its heavier-handed Nvidia and AMD guidance to a wider range of settings, according to one person with direct knowledge of the deliberations, who said that those conversations are in early stages.
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Just wait til the 6070 comes out, it'll support the latest native ray traced slideshow technology, as well as frame generation. Not to mention an AMPLE 8GB of VRAM (and don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise, 8GB is more than generous), and with a TDP of 555W, what's not to love?
And all that for just $750?? If you need more: maybe the 6080 and its 16GB of VRAM and completely reasonable $3,200 MSRP will be a better fit.
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that saw massive acceleration in chinese chip development.
lol, no. Cute delusions, though.
We could argue it was a failure, because the Chinese aren't idiots, and instead innovated lower power ways to train their models.... using H20s.
But as for the 910C? No, very much trash-tier.
If it weren't trash-tier, nobody would ever buy an H20, which is neutered as fuck.
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It's a low-yield DUV part that has a fraction of the performance/W of an H20. They're expensive as hell to make, and it's far cheaper to buy, and run, H20s.
The fucking thing is literally 2 910Bs glued together.
Yes, it is trash.
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However, H20s were no longer available there, and people need hardware to run inference and training on.
The supply is limited (100k a year) for the 910C because it is a trash part.
They throw away more wafers than they can sell due to the high defect rate.
The fact that it's literally just 2 910Bs in a single package wouldn't matter, if they could produce the thing at a higher yield rate than the 910B- but they can't.
So, as I said:
The limi
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It requires over double the power of an H20, at over double the price.
The price of power in China is about 9.8c/kWh. That's so fucking far from irrelevant, I have to wonder if you ever passed a fucking English class in your life.
You can't get a 910C because they're trash, and the yield rate (2 910Bs worth of terrible yield rate? That makes it twice as good, right?) makes them fucking impossible to make at a reasonable price.
Meanwhile, NV sold literal actual billions of
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You seem to have this weird idea that power is free in China.
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Wasn't there something on Slashdot a few weeks ago about how people from China were going to some other nations to pack hard drives and other hardware into suitcases to avoid import bans? Was it Malaysia? Indonesia? Maybe someone can reply to help refresh everyone's memory.
The point is that the bans on shipping hardware to China wasn't working. The best the federal government could do is slow the flow and limit how much of the best gear China could get. By allowing China to have "obsolete" (whatever th
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China has plenty of alternatives for HPC and AI (Score:2)
From InnoSilicon, to Huawei, to MooreThread, to the most recent entrant Lisuan.
Are these as good as nVIDIA's offerings? Nope.
Are these as good as AMD's offerings ? Nope.
Are these as good as Intel's Offerings? Nope.
Are these as good as Broadcomm's offerings? Nope
Are these alternatives good enough for the taks at hand (HPC and AI)? Well yes! Yes, they are good enough.
It's got nothing to do with security (Score:1)
I want to say that lifting the ban means that used GPU prices might go down but with Trump doing those crazy tariffs than unless the courts actually stop him like they should (he's using emergency Powers despite the fact that there is zero emergency) we are
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I want to say that lifting the ban means that used GPU prices might go down but with Trump doing those crazy tariffs than unless the courts actually stop him like they should (he's using emergency Powers despite the fact that there is zero emergency) we are probably going to see prices go up somewhere between 1 and 1/2 to 2 times what they are now.
Why take this to court? Congress has the sole power of taxation, but they handed some of that to POTUS by means of legislation. Fix this in the law, not in the courts. If this does go to court then I'd expect the court to simply read the law back to everyone in their decision. If you don't like the law then change it.
Also the Republican party that is trying to ban porn is also hard at work now trying to ban violent video games like everybody said they would. Say goodbye to GTA 6 folks. Now get back to church and don't forget to tithe.
I'm not sure what to think of laws on porn. What I'm seeing are Democrats going increasingly off into wild policies that is narrowing their voter base. Maybe if Democrats restored some sa
Congress didn't hand power (Score:1)
So 50% tariffs on Russia because the war in ukraine? That could be justified. War is generally considered an emergency.
But overriding trade deals made by Congress with Nations we are friendly with? There's no emergency there it's so Trump is violating the law.
When the president violates the law checks and balances means you go to the courts. If the courts fail because
The Art of the Deal (Score:4, Insightful)
Or the art of shitting the bed?
This is why letting politicans decide details of trade and economics is such a bad idea. We put a man in charge that does not realize he is not competent in every sphere and mainly appoints Yesmen and toadies as advisors.
We are part of the generation that will experience the greatest fall in a century. It will make the retraction and fall of the British Empire seem like child's play.
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I've met top tech leaders over the decades. Hand shakes with Vinod Khosla, had a whiskey with Marc Andreessen, breakfast with Greg Raleigh, etc.
In then end, I turned hundreds of dollars of my parent's "it's time for you to move out" money into thousands-ish.
But I will be the first to admit that I shouldn't be in charge of the nation's tech
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This is why letting politicans decide details of trade and economics is such a bad idea.
When it comes to setting taxes and tariffs that is a function of government. Government will be full of politicians. So... do we have non-government entities set tax rates instead? Some CEOs and CFOs? I don't understand the complaint, maybe offering some alternatives would help.
We put a man in charge that does not realize he is not competent in every sphere and mainly appoints Yesmen and toadies as advisors.
Setting taxes and tariffs is supposed to be left to Congress, that is how the USA was constituted. For some reason Congress has... conferred? Transferred? Abdicated? However one wishes to describe it Congress isn't setting ta
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This isn't one man setting tariffs. He has the backing of hundreds of elected politicians in Congress to let this continue. If this bothers you then keep that in mind for who is elected to Congress in November of 2026.
Is this post satire?
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Trump has no idea what GPU or ML is (Score:3)
They're afraid. (Score:2)
They're afraid that the US might be doing to them what they have been doing to the US for years.
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They're afraid that the US might be doing to them what they have been doing to the US for years.
Supply them with vital technology?
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Supply them with vital technology?
Products are not technology, they are made with technology, which China has been copying.
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Although I think we generally have. Starting with the eviction of Huawei.