As Chinese firms scale and U.S. export rules tighten, Nvidia is fighting to keep a foothold in China
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says China is just “nanoseconds behind” the U.S. in chipmaking and that Washington should stop trying to wall off the market.
Speaking on the BG2 podcast, Huang argued that allowing companies like Nvidia to sell into China would serve American interests by spreading U.S. technology and extending its geopolitical influence. “We’re up against a formidable, innovative, hungry, fast-moving, underregulated [competitor],” Huang said, talking about the pedigree of China’s engineers and controversial 9-9-6 working culture.
His comments come as Nvidia hopes to ship its H20 AI GPU to Chinese customers again, following a months-long pause tied to new U.S. export rules. The Commerce Department is understood to have begun issuing licenses for the H20 in August, and Nvidia is already working on a successor chip designed to comply with current restrictions while offering better performance. The company has not confirmed specs, but it would be Nvidia’s second attempt to tailor an AI accelerator specifically for the Chinese market since the original A100 and H100 bans took effect.
Not exactly an unbiased opinion… He just wants a market to sell more chips.
He’s not totally wrong, though. China probably will have something competitive with TSMC in the next few years. When Jensen says they’re nanoseconds behind the US, that means Intel and Global Foundries, which is a lower bar.
They are more like 20-25 years behind. Also they are going to keep pursuing their own chip technology even if the US has free trade with them. It’s a critical security industry for them.
SMIC is already producing 7nm chips:
No, they are, right now, at parity or beating Samsung and Global Foundries, and are right on the tail of Intel. TSMC is the only one with a meaningful lead.
I wonder what the actual performance is compared to say like Skylake? Or Fermi or maxwell GPUs per clock and per core?
You are right it’s a critical industry to China, not only security, but also commercial because USA is blocking China from commercial use too.
China claim to be able to make 7nm now, if that’s true they are 7 years behind.
They also claim they will be able to make 5nm next year, if that’s true they are catching up.
China is forced to develop their own technologies, and if they can make EUV within a few years, there is practically nothing stopping them from catching up and maybe even surpass ASML/TSMC.That is interesting. It is important to note that these claims are kind of arbitrary. 7nm doesn’t really mean anything because they can measure any feature and say that. What would be more important is seeing the IPC per core. Moving beyond 7nm is also extremely difficult but even getting to 7nm is extremely impressive. This will probably actually just end up helping us as the consumer tbh because chips are so expensive right now, since basically a handful of companies control the market.
7nm doesn’t really mean anything
That is true, but even Intel has adjusted to use numbers that reflect similar processes to TSMC, and Samsung does too.
I have no doubt SMIC (China) could be exaggerating a bit, Intel does that too. But I’m sure this is supposed to be comparable to Intel/Samsung/TSMC.Moving beyond 7nm is also extremely difficult
Yes, that’s why the claim of 5nm is extremely interesting, that’s almost impossible without EUV.
But we don’t know enough yet, for instance error rate/yields are very important too. Without acceptable error rates, they can only make small dies, which complicate complex designs for demanding tasks, as they have to be spread among more dies.
Something AMD mastered with Ryzen, maybe in part because they were limited to Global Foundries (inferior production process to Intel at the time) when they designed the Ryzen chip, and they managed to turn a disadvantage in production into an advantage in design, using chiplets that worked extremely well together.Also power consumption is important, because without lower power consumption reducing the scale of production is near meaningless.
more important is seeing the IPC per core
That’s the design side of the problem, and IDK where China is at regarding efficient AI chip design, but they did manage to make the worlds fastest super computer based on very good design a few years back. As I see it, design will be the lesser problem for China on chip production, because many companies have been working on their own design for years now. Even Xiaomi have their own AI design in their new chips, and those chips are very good from what I hear.
This will probably actually just end up helping us as the consumer tbh
I agree, if the alternative is near monopoly by Nvidia and TSMC, I have no doubt that not only China but also the rest of the world will benefit too.
Nice info, thanks. I’m going to look up IPC comparisons if I can.
Not quite. He is saying let me sell chips to them now while we can. Soon we’ll all be buying from them. “Make hay while the sun shines”.
“Guy who sells AI chips calls for no restriction for selling AI chips”
Stop blocking my sales please. I need a shinier jacket for my next stage talk.
I bet to him that winning is a significant part of the competition. And he has been winning for about 3½ decade straight now.
So he will never lack anything, money is probably secondary, winning and power is where it’s at now.
Problem is that if China develops an entire infrastructure alternative to the near monopoly Nvidia has, the cost to Nvidia and even USA will be huge.
But it doesn’t really matter, because it’s probably too late now, if China can, they absolutely will make a strong alternative to Nvidia.USA has proven themselves to be an untrustworthy supplier, and that’s basically the end of debate in China.
Play stupid games win stupid prices, or simply FAFO.
USA has been able to Fuck Around without the Find Out part for a long time, but that time is probably over, only American exceptionalists haven’t found out yet.
Even if the US drops the export bans, the party still views it as a critical security industry and will continue to attempt to outcompete foreign companies. And since they’re willing to take that sort of investment stance that the US is not, then they will eventually do so.
the party still views it as a critical security industry
Of course they do, USA has proven that they must.
He’s just malding hard that he can’t sell his slop generators to more people. Newsflash, Jensen! The party’s over! Go home.
old man jenson had a farm, AIAI OH! and on that farm he had some chips, AIAI OH! time for the earnings call! AI her and AI there; theres no escape theres AI everywhere AIAI OH!!
“We need your chips because we can make our own”
Makes no sense
Then why is there a demand in china?
I’m sorry but those glasses are disqualifying.
Next!
