The US’ Trump administration is reportedly considering the possibility of allowing NVIDIA to sell its H200 AI chips to China. Supposedly, the consideration is being mulled over as a part of a bilateral detente to boost prospects for exports of advanced US technology to the Asian powerhouse.
“The administration is committed to securing America’s global technology leadership and safeguarding our national security,” said a White House official who declined to comment in full, but was privy to the fact that a review of its policy is being conducted. NVIDIA also did not comment on the alleged review but it did confirm that current regulations do not allow the company to sell its AI chips in China, to Chinese companies.
Since taking office, Trump has doubled down on the number of sanctions and restrictions on US chips that are allowed to be sold to China, with NVIDIA caught squarely in the middle of the crossfire. As of now, the GPU brand has been allowed to sell its H20 chips, which are considered an inferior version of the more powerful H100 chips.
But even with that leeway, the current geopolitical climate has clearly hurt its sales; Chinese companies are being coerced by their own government not to purchase any NVIDIA GPUs, and instead opt for local, homegrown AI chips.
That said, the H200 isn’t by any means new: the GPU launched two years ago, but it is certainly more powerful than the H100 with more high-bandwidth memory soldered to its system. By comparison, the H200 is estimated to be twice as powerful as the H20.
(Source: Reuters)
