Nvidia is working on a new AI chip for China that could be stronger than the H20 model it currently sells there, according to people familiar with the plans, Reuters reported. The chip will be based on the company’s latest Blackwell design.
Last week, US President Donald Trump suggested that more advanced Nvidia chips might eventually be sold in China. But approval is uncertain, as US officials remain wary of giving Beijing too much access to American AI technology.
The new chip, referred to internally as the B30A, is expected to use a single-die design. That means all the core parts of the chip are built on one piece of silicon, instead of split in two dies like in Nvidia’s flagship B300. People familiar with the details said this would likely give the B30A about half the power of the B300, but still make it stronger than the H20.
Like the H20, the B30A will feature high-bandwidth memory and NVLink, Nvidia’s technology for moving data quickly between processors. Final specifications haven’t been locked in, but the company hopes to send samples to Chinese customers for testing as early as next month.
Nvidia, in a statement about its strategy for China, said: “We evaluate a variety of products for our roadmap, so that we can be prepared to compete to the extent that governments allow. Everything we offer is with the full approval of the applicable authorities and designed solely for beneficial commercial use.”
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has been pushing for approval. “Of course he would like to sell a new chip to China,” Lutnick said, adding that Huang often pitches the idea directly to the president. “The president listens to our great technology companies, and he’ll decide how he wants to play it. But the fact Jensen is pitching a new chip shouldn’t surprise anybody.”
US-China trade tensions grow over Nvidia chips
The question of how much access China should have to advanced AI chips has become one of the main points of tension between Washington and Beijing. China accounted for 13% of Nvidia’s revenue last year.
Nvidia only resumed selling the H20 in July after US regulators abruptly halted sales in April. The H20 was designed in 2023 to meet export rules which restricted chip sales to China.
Donald Trump said recently he might allow Nvidia to sell a scaled-down version of its next-generation chip in China. As part of a broader deal, Nvidia and rival AMD agreed to give the US government 15% of revenue from some chip sales to China. Trump also called the H20 “obsolete,” suggesting that a new China-only chip could deliver “30% to 50% off” [sic] the computing power of the top model.
Bipartisan Washington legislators argue even weaker versions of AI chips could still give China an edge in critical areas. Nvidia and others have countered, saying if they stop selling to China, customers will turn to local suppliers like Huawei. The latter’s most recent chip models are said to rival Nvidia’s in raw computing power, though analysts say Huawei still trails in software performance and memory speed.
China’s state media has added more pressure by warning that Nvidia’s chips could carry security risks, with regulators cautioning Chinese firms against buying the H20. Nvidia has denied that its hardware poses any such threat.
Another chip in the works
Alongside the B30A, Nvidia is preparing another product specifically for the Chinese market, also built on the Blackwell architecture but focused on AI inference tasks. According to sources, the RTX6000D chip will be cheaper than the H20 due to simpler design and lower specifications.
Reuters previously reported that the RTX6000D is designed to perform at just under thresholds set by US export strictures. It uses standard GDDR memory and runs at 1,398 gigabytes per second – slightly below the 1.4 terabyte-per-second cap set by new restrictions in April.
Small shipments of the RTX6000D are expected to reach Chinese customers in September.
(Photo by BoliviaInteligente)
See also: NVIDIA aims to solve AI’s issues with many languages
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