SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK:
Nvidia on Tuesday said it would take $5.5 billion in charges after the US government limited exports of its H20 artificial intelligence chip to China, a key market for one of its most popular chips.
Nvidia’s AI chips have been a key focus of US export controls as officials have moved to keep the most advanced chips from being sold to China in efforts to keep ahead in the AI race. After those controls were implemented, Nvidia began designing chips that would come as close as possible to US limits.
Nvidia shares were down about 6% in after-hours trading.
A US Commerce Department spokesperson said late on Tuesday that it was issuing new licensing requirements for exports of chips including Nvidia’s H20, AMD’s MI308 and their equivalents.
AMD did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Its shares were down 7% in after-hours trading.
For Nvidia, the H20 is its most advanced chip available for sale in China and is central to its efforts to stay engaged with China’s booming AI industry.
Chinese companies including Tencent, Alibaba and TikTok parent ByteDance had been ramping up orders for H20 chips due to booming demand for low-cost AI models from startup DeepSeek, Reuters reported in February.
But Nvidia said on Tuesday that the US government was restricting H20 sales to China because of the risk the chips could be used in a supercomputer.
