China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports.
US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market.
On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work.
Photo: EPA
“They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks said in an interview on Bloomberg Tech, citing an unspecified news article he had seen that day. “Apparently they don’t want them, and I think the reason for that is they want semiconductor independence.”
Sacks on Saturday wrote on social media that he was referring to a Financial Times report that China was poised to limit access to the chips through a local approval process in which Chinese buyers would need to justify their purchases.
Sacks’ comments raise questions about whether Nvidia would be able to recover revenue from China. Bloomberg Intelligence analysts estimate annual H200 revenue in China to be a US$10 billion opportunity — but only if the nation accepts the US firm’s chips.
Nvidia would continue to work with the administration on H200 licenses for vetted customers, a company spokesperson said in a statement.
“While we do not yet have results to report, it’s clear that three years of overbroad export controls fueled America’s foreign competitors and cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,” the company said.
China is weighing a package of incentives worth as much as US$70 billion to support its local chipmaking industry, Bloomberg reported on Friday, underscoring Beijing’s resolve to reduce its reliance on foreign chipmakers such as Nvidia.
It suggests that the government would continue to support companies such as Huawei and Cambricon Technologies Corp (寒武紀) even with the H200 cleared by the US for export to China.
The H200, which was introduced in 2023 and began shipping to customers last year, is part of the Hopper generation of Nvidia’s graphics processing units, second-best to the Blackwell line and two generations behind the upcoming Rubin series. An 18-month lag behind the latest Nvidia chips was part of the Trump administration’s justification for the decision.
Sacks, a venture capitalist who joined the administration in January, identified China’s desire to prop up and subsidize Huawei as a key reason for its H200 reluctance.
“What you see is China’s not taking them because they want to prop up and subsidize Huawei,” Sacks said. “That was part of our calculation, of selling not the best, but lagging chips to China, is that you can take market share away from Huawei, but I think the Chinese government has figured that out, and that’s why they’re not allowing them.”
Beijing has yet to publicly agree to allow imports of Nvidia’s H200 products. It also has yet to publicly reject them, despite the recent US policy change. Earlier this year, China shunned the H20, a significantly less capable chip Trump allowed this summer.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS