The journey in China of the Nvidia GPU for artificial intelligence (AI) H20 He has been full of ups and downs. Since this chip reached the Chinese market in mid -2024 its sales 50% quarter to quarter grewwhich positioned it as The most successful Nvidia product of recent years. However, this era of bonanza lasted little. And it is that in the middle of last April the US Department of Commerce decided impose export restrictions To China of the H20 GPU.
After several weeks of negotiations with the US government Nvidia got the export license that he needed to sell his GPU for the H20 in China, but the joy lasted little. And it is that the Chinese government has vetoed this chip. And he has done so that the administration of the cyberspace of China, which is the main Internet regulatory body in this country, is thoroughly investigating this GPU because it suspects that it could incorporate a rear door of difficult location by Chinese experts.
Nvidia engineers have been working on a new GPU for several months for expressly designed for the Chinese market. It will be called B30A And on his shoulders he will rest, neither more nor less, the future of the company led by Jensen Huang in China. This chip must necessarily meet two conditions. On the one hand it has to be more powerful than the GPU H20, and, in addition, it must satisfy the restrictions imposed by the US Department of Commerce. Otherwise Nvidia will not get the export license you need to be able to sell this chip in this Asian country.
The future of the B30A GPU in China right now is uncertain
Chinese companies that are dedicated to the development of large AI models are trapped. On the one hand they are being forced to deal with the export restrictions of the GPU imposed by the US government. And, in addition, they are subject to their own dependence on American technology. A priori the optimal solution for them would be to stop buying Nvidia and other US companies their chips for AI, and getting “comparable” GPUs proposed by Huawei, Change either Moore Threadsamong other Chinese companies.
Jensen Huang has just recognized that his next GPU will take to arrive in the country led by Xi Jinping
However, as explained in your article to Foreign Policy The American analyst Kyle Chan, the scenario they face is more complicated than it seems. And it is that abandoning Nvidia in practice is very difficult. According to ChanTencent, Bytedance, Alibaba and other Chinese companies They prefer GPUs for Nvidia Because its performance is greater, especially when facing the training processes of their AI models. However, they especially opt for the chips of this American company thanks to CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture).
Most of the AI projects that are currently being developed are implemented on CUDA. This technology brings together the compiler and development tools used by programmers to develop their software for NVIDIA GPUs, and replace it with another option in the projects that are already underway it is a problem. Huawei, who aspires to an important portion From this market in China, it has Cann (Compute Architecture for Neural Networks), which is its alternative to CUDA, but for the moment CUDA dominates the market.
In these circumstances, the B30A chip that is putting to point Nvidia has all the meaning of the world. Presumably It will be half powerful that the most advanced GPU this company currently has, The B300 chipbut, even so, it is reasonable to assume that will overcome performance of all the chips for the developed in China, especially when facing the training processes of the AI models.
This is the best asset that Nvidia has, but Jensen Huang has just recognized that its next GPU will take to arrive in the country led by Xi Jinping. And it will not be because it is not ready. It will be because the US Trade Department will take long to give it approval, if it finally gives it. What is happening to Nvidia in China is a full -fledged soap opera.
Image | Nvidia
More information | Reuters
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