Tag Archives: Blackwell chips Nvidia

Nvidia CEO Has a Magic Needle

Leave a reply

Nvidia’s market share in China fell to 50% from 95% over the past four years under U.S. restrictions, Huang, Nvidia’s CEO,  said in May 2025.  He visited China at least three times in 2025 to reassure Chinese tech executives and government officials that Nvidia was committed to the market…. Huang has met with top executives of Chinese cloud-computing leader Alibaba, smartphone and automaker Xiaomi and OpenAI challenger MiniMax.People in China’s tech industry said they appreciated Huang’s efforts to modify his chips so they could be sold in China. Engineers there nicknamed him “Magic Tailor” for his skill in designing chips to thread the needle of U.S. regulations.

Knowing the importance of the Chinese market to Nvidia, Beijing increased pressure on the company: China’s cybersecurity regulator recently summoned Nvidia representatives to discuss alleged security risks of the H20 chips, citing comments by U.S. lawmakers about the need for a bill to require tracking capabilities for advanced chips sold abroad….

Excerpt from Lingling Wei et al, With Billions at Risk, Nvidia CEO Buys His Way Out of the Trade Battle, WSJ, Aug. 11, 2025

 

Nvidia Geopolitical Games

Leave a reply

Nvidia plans (in 2025) to open a research and development center in Shanghai to maintain its presence in China. The facility will help Nvidia understand Chinese customer demands and design products that are compliant with US export controls and sanctions. Chief Executive Jensen Huang visited China in April 2025 and discussed the plan with Shanghai’s mayor, who welcomed it and offered to provide support…Since 2022, Washington has required licenses for exports of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips to China. That has reduced China sales, which accounted for 13% of revenue in its last fiscal year, down from 26% before the export restrictions.

The company is seeking to lease an office space in Shanghai for the new facility to accommodate existing employees and potential new hires, the people said. Officials in the city, where Tesla’s China plant is located, have told the company that it would offer tax breaks and reduce red tape for its new project, the people said. 

The company has repeatedly created downgraded variants of chips after Washington tightened its rules so that it could keep selling to China. The practice has angered some U.S. officials, who were upset the company wasn’t being more helpful in curbing China’s AI advances. Nvidia has said it follows U.S. export rules and has advocated for selling to Chinese customers rather than ceding the market to domestic companies such as Huawei Technologies, which are filling in the gap left by Nvidia and its American peers.

Excerpt from Raffaele Huang, Nvidia to Set Up Research Center in Shanghai, Maintaining Foothold in China, WSJ, May 16, 2025

The Cat-and-Mouse Game: US-China, Chip Giants

Leave a reply

The U.S. on March 28 2025 added dozens of Chinese companies to a trade blacklist over national security concerns. American businesses seeking to sell technology to these companies will need approval from the government. Among those added were subsidiaries of Inspur Group, China’s largest server maker and a major customer for U.S. chip makers such as Nvidia, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. Companies linked to China’s largest supercomputer maker, Sugon, were also added…

Nearly 80 companies were put on the Commerce Department’s blacklist, known as the entity list…including the U.S. server maker Aivres Systems that is wholly owned by Inspur Electronic. The latter is one-third owned by Inspur Group, according to corporate records. Aivres has been assembling high-end artificial-intelligence equipment for Nvidia. The AI-chip giant has said that Aivres will make servers using chips in the Blackwell family, Nvidia’s newest and most powerful processors.  Aivres advertises on its website that it sells servers and infrastructure powered by Blackwell chips, which are banned from sale into China…About two months after Inspur Group was added to the trade blacklist in March 2023, California-based Inspur Systems changed its name to Aivres Systems.

Excerpts from Liza Lin, Trump Takes Tough Approach to Choking Off China’s Access to U.S. Tech, WSJ, Mar. 26, 2025