NVIDIA Is Working On A New 'B20' AI Chip To Revive Its Chinese Business

Three insiders have revealed that NVIDIA is developing a new flagship AI chip for the Chinese market, which will comply with the current U.S. export control regulations.

According to them, NVIDIA will collaborate with one of its Chinese distributors, Inspur Group, to distribute this chip, tentatively named B20. However, the report did not mention the performance or specifications of the AI chip.

In March of this year, NVIDIA launched a new generation of Blackwell architecture series chips, which will be mass-produced later this year. Among them, the B200 integrates 208 billion transistors, which is 2.6 times the 80 billion transistors of the previous generation. Moreover, the B200 is 30 times faster than its predecessor in some tasks, such as providing answers for chatbots.

As early as October 2022, the U.S. government introduced comprehensive restrictions aimed at curbing the development of China's chip industry. Subsequent media reports indicated that NVIDIA developed a new advanced chip for the Chinese market in less than a month, to continue to provide services in the Chinese market without violating regulations.

Then in October 2023, the U.S. issued new rules further controlling the export of artificial intelligence-related chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China, and added several Chinese entities to the export control entity list. Then earlier this year, the U.S. upgraded its ban on chip exports to China, comprehensively restricting the sale of more advanced AI chips and semiconductor equipment from NVIDIA, AMD, and others to China.

Because of this, NVIDIA's business in China has been severely impacted, and the company has been racking its brains.

However, the Chinese market is significant to NVIDIA. The company's CEO, Jensen Huang, said at the first fiscal quarter financial report meeting that due to various restrictions, the Chinese data center business has significantly decreased, and the company will continue to serve Chinese customers to the greatest extent possible.

Our business in China is substantially lower than the levels of the past, it's a lot more competitive in China now, because of the limitations on our technology . . . However, we continue to do our best to serve the customers in the markets there, he said.

Since the U.S. tightened control over exports of cutting-edge semiconductors to China, NVIDIA has designed several AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. For example, HGX H20, L20 PCle, and L2 PCle, etc. However, the results have been less than satisfactory.

Therefore, whether this latest special supply AI chip can help NVIDIA regain confidence in the Chinese market is still unknown.

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