NVIDIA is ready to flood the Chinese market. Its weapon: an AI chip much cheaper than its H20, which was banned by the US.

The H20 chip is a revision of NVIDIA’s most powerful AI GPUs with lower performance.

TSMC will begin manufacturing a new NVIDIA AI GPU with Blackwell microarchitecture in June.

In practice, the country ruled by Xi Jinping is the company’s third-largest customer, behind only the US and Taiwan. However, the sanctions against China being implemented by the US government threaten NVIDIA’s survival in this Asian country. Currently, the company cannot sell its most advanced AI chips to its Chinese customers. And in mid-April, the US Department of Commerce imposed new restrictions on the export of NVIDIA’s H20 GPU to China.

NVIDIA is going to storm China with an AI chip much cheaper than its H20
The reception given to the H20 GPU by NVIDIA’s Chinese customers has been very positive, despite the fact that this chip’s capabilities are clearly inferior to those of the company’s other AI offerings. In fact, the Department of Commerce initially allowed its sale in China because this integrated circuit complied with the restrictions it had imposed. And despite its limitations, its sales in China have grown 50% quarter over quarter since it arrived in this market in mid-2024.