Nvidia Has Advanced Chip for China That Meets US Exports Rules

Chipmaker Nvidia has developed a new advanced chip for China that adheres to new US control export rules aimed at restricting that country’s access to AI technology.

The chip, known as the A800, is an alternative to the A100 chip that went into production in the third quarter, Nvidia said Monday. “The A800 meets the US government’s clear test for reduced export control and cannot be programmed to exceed it,” a spokesperson for the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker said in a statement.

Tech companies have increasingly been caught in the middle of rising tensions between China and the US over Chinese companies gaining access to technologies that enable high-performance computing, such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

Nvidia revealed in August that the US government had ordered it to restrict sales of two AI acceleration chips to China — the A100 and forthcoming H100, which let AI developers speed up their research and build more-advanced AI models. The order aimed to “address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a ‘military end use’ or ‘military end user’ in China and Russia,” Nvidia said at the time.

The company warned at the time that it had expected approximately $400 million in sales to China during the third quarter but indicated that figure may be impacted by customers being unwilling to purchase alternative products.

The new chip was previously reported by Reuters.