Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday criticized the US government’s restrictions on exports of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China, saying that the policy was a failure and would only spur China to accelerate AI development.
The export controls gave China the spirit, motivation and government support to accelerate AI development, Huang told reporters at the Computex trade show in Taipei.
The competition in China is already intense, given its strong software capabilities, extensive technology ecosystems and work efficiency, he said.
Photo: Cheng I-hwa, AFP
“All in all, the export controls were a failure. The facts would suggest it,” he said.
“The US should maximize the speed of AI diffusion. Because if we don’t, the competition will come,” he added.
Four years ago, at the beginning of former US president Joe Biden’s administration, Nvidia’s market share in China was nearly 95 percent, Huang said.
Today, it only holds 50 percent, with the rest of the market held by local companies in China, he said.
The fundamental assumption that the US is the only place that develops and provides AI infrastructure is wrong, Huang said.
The export restrictions resulted in huge costs that Nvidia had to bear, he said.
As the H20 chip — a lower-specification AI chip the firm developed to comply with US export curbs — is now barred from being shipped to China, Nvidia had to write off US$5.5 billion of inventory, he said.
As Nvidia was only allowed to ship less-advanced chips to China, average selling prices were lower, leading to lower revenue, he said.
Nvidia has no plans to downgrade the H20 chip further, he said, urging the US government to come up with a new policy, as China is an important market.
China has 50 percent of the world’s AI researchers, Huang said.
It is important that when they develop AI applications, they build on Nvidia’s architecture, or at least American technology, he said.
DeepSeek’s (深度求索) cost-effective AI model was built on Nvidia, he added.
China’s AI market would probably reach US$50 billion next year, Huang said, adding that “it would be a shame that Nvidia is not going to enjoy it.”
Huang also dismissed a media report that the company plans to build a research-and-development center in Shanghai.
The company is planning to lease a building to house its growing number of Chinese employees, he said.
Expanding Nvidia’s Taiwan office reflects the company’s need for a bigger office to cope with the rising number of staff here and the rapid growth of its partnerships in Taiwan’s ecosystem, he said.
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