By Barbara Kollmeyer
Report says China telling companies not to buy Nvidia’s H20 chips
China is reportedly dissuading companies from purchasing Nvidia’s H20 chips.
Nvidia’s rock-and-a-hard place position on selling AI chips to China might have just worsened, as that country has reportedly told companies not to buy them.
Notifications have been sent to several firms, dissuading them from using the H20 processors, which Nvidia (NVDA)developed specifically for the Chinese market, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing sources. That especially applies to any company using the processors related to any government activity, the report added.
The purported development follows a Financial Times report on Sunday that Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices had worked out a deal to give 15% of revenue from China chip sales to the U.S. government in exchange for export licenses to sell in the country again.
Analysts have said that such a deal would set a dangerous precedent for those companies by paying the U.S. government to sell their own chips. Nvidia’s H20 and AMD’s MI308 chips were designed specifically to meet U.S. export rules, but were banned from selling those to China in April by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Read: Nvidia and AMD reportedly strike deals with Trump – but analysts see a ‘slippery slope’
Sources told Bloomberg that China’s apparent reluctance to allow companies to purchase Nvidia’s H20 chip also applies to AI accelerators from AMD, though the report said it’s not clear if the guidelines also apply to its MI308 chips.
Bloomberg reached out to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Cyberspace Administration of China for comment, but neither responded. MarketWatch has reached out to Nvidia and AMD for comment.
Shares of both companies were tilting modestly lower ahead of Tuesday’s open, according to Robinhood. Monday saw Nvidia stock fall 0.3% and AMD lose 0.2%.
-Barbara Kollmeyer
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08-12-25 0337ET
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