Liam Mo, Brenda Goh and Karen Freifeld
BEIJING/NEW YORK (Reuters) – NVDA (NVDA) placed an order for 300,000 H20 chipsets with contract manufacturer TSMC (TSM), two sources said, adding that strong demand in China has made the U.S. company’s ideas change its existing stocks rely on existing stocks, one of the sources said.
Trump’s administration this month allowed NVIDIA to resume sales of H20 graphics processing units (GPUs) to China, thus reversing the effective ban imposed in April in April, aiming to place advanced AI chips on national security issues.
NVIDIA’s export restrictions on other AI chipsets in the United States were implemented by the end of 2023, and the H20 was developed specifically for the Chinese market. The H20 is less computing power than the NVIDIA’s H100 or the NVIDIA’s H100 or the new Blackwell series sold on the market outside of China.
According to sources who were not authorized to talk to the media and declined to be named, Taiwan’s new orders will increase the existing inventory of 600,000 to 700,000 H20 chips.
According to semi-analysis by US Research, NVIDIA sold about 1 million H20 chips in 2024 for comparison purposes.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said during a trip to Beijing this month that the level of H20 orders received will determine whether production will start again, adding that any reboot of the supply chain will take nine months.
After Huang’s trip, NVIDIA told customers that information restricted H20 stocks, the information did not immediately restart the wafer production of the GPU.
NVIDIA needs to obtain an export license from the U.S. government to ship H20 chips. It said that in mid-July, authorities assured the authorities that it would get them soon.
One of the sources and a third source said the U.S. Department of Commerce has not approved the licenses yet.
NVIDIA declined to comment on the status of new orders or their licensing applications on Monday. TSMC declined to comment. The U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One of the sources and the fourth source said that NVIDIA has asked Chinese companies interested in purchasing the NVIDIA H20 chip to submit new documents, including order volume forecasts from customers.
United States – Key Products of Sino Trade War
The Trump administration said the resumption of H20 sales was part of negotiations with China on rare earth magnets – an essential element for many industries, while Beijing’s exports were limited as trade war tensions escalate.
The decision has attracted bipartisan condemnation from U.S. lawmakers who fear that getting China’s H20 would hinder our efforts to maintain its leadership in AI technology.
