Nvidia's China restart faces production obstacles, The Information reports

(Reuters) - Nvidia has told its Chinese customers it has limited supplies of H20 chips, the most powerful AI chip it had been allowed to sell to China under U.S. export restrictions, The Information reported on Saturday.

 

Nvidia said this week that it was planning to resume sales of the H20 chips to China, though under the policy change the U.S. must still approve licenses for the export of the chips.  

 

The U.S. government’s April ban on sales of the H20 chips had forced Nvidia to void customer orders and cancel manufacturing capacity it had booked at chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), said the report in tech publication The Information, citing two people with knowledge of the matter.    

 

TSMC had shifted its H20 production lines to produce other chips for other customers, and manufacturing new chips from scratch could take nine months, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at a media event in Beijing this week, according to the report.

 

The report also said Nvidia did not plan to restart production, without citing any sources or giving details.

 

Nvidia declined to comment on the report. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

 

Huang made comments in recent days suggesting Nvidia would ramp up supply of H20 chips, and that licenses for Chinese orders would be approved swiftly.

 

Nvidia has also announced that it is developing a new chip for Chinese clients called the RTX Pro GPU, which would be compliant with U.S. export restrictions.

 

(Reporting by Angela Christy in Bengaluru; Editing by Aidan Lewis)