Nvidia Corp said it has been given licenses to provide support to US customers in China and to allow it to complete development work there on its artificial-intelligence chips, a small concession in Washington’s latest push to shut off that country’s access to advanced technology.
The US government has authorized the company to “perform exports needed to provide support for US customers of A100 through March 1, 2023,” a company filing on Thursday said.
Nvidia has also been granted permission to transfer necessary technology to China for the development of its upcoming H100 products. These exports are authorized to be conducted through the US chipmaker’s Hong Kong facility through Sept. 1 next year, it said.
Photo: AFP
The statement did little to assuage concerns laid out in Nvidia’s warning on Wednesday that the restrictions might cost it US$400 million in revenue this quarter. The time limitations laid out in Thursday’s filing reflect the US government’s determination to clamp down on access to technology it deems could be misused for military purposes.
For Nvidia, which relies on China for about one-quarter of its revenue, the temporary easing likely does not allow it to sell the chips to some of the biggest buyers of that type of technology — Chinese hyperscalers, companies that operate the biggest data centers full of server chips.
What the easing does do is crucially allow it to use Chinese engineers and operations to complete development of its H100 chip, its latest piece of technology for the market.
“If Nvidia is unable to complete H100 development, the knock-on effects would likely be much larger than the direct revenue exposure in the current quarter,” Cowen & Co analyst Matt Ramsay wrote in a report.
“We are working with our customers in China to satisfy their planned or future purchases with alternative products and may seek licenses where replacements aren’t sufficient,” the company said on Wednesday. “The only current products that the new licensing requirement applies to are A100, H100 and systems such as DGX that include them.”
US companies are under increasing government scrutiny over their dealings with China, the largest market for semiconductors, amid a growing rivalry between the world’s two largest economies.
The US is trying to limit China’s access to technology, saying Beijing represents a security risk. China, in turn, is trying to build its own domestic capabilities to make itself less dependent on the US, which still dominates the design and development of the crucial technology.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc on Wednesday said that it received a similar notice from the government, although it does not expect a significant impact.
“At this time, we do not believe that shipments of MI100 integrated circuits are impacted by the new requirements,” the company said in a separate statement.
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