Nvidia in talks with Trump administration on a new chip for China

BANGKOK

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Aug. 22 that the company is discussing a potential new computer chip designed for China with the Trump administration.

Huang was asked about a possible “B30A” semiconductor for artificial intelligence data centers for China while on a visit to Taiwan, where he was meeting Nvidia's key manufacturing partner, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., the world's largest chip maker.

“I’m offering a new product to China for ... AI data centers, the follow-on to H20,” Huang said.

But he added that "That’s not our decision to make. It’s up to, of course, the United States government. And we’re in dialogue with them, but it’s too soon to know.”

Such chips are graphics processing units, or GPUs, a type of device used to build and update a range of AI systems. But they are less powerful than Nvidia’s top semiconductors today, which cannot be sold to China due to U.S. national security restrictions.

The B30A, based on California-based Nvidia's specialized Blackwell technology, is reported to operate at about half the speed of Nvidia's main B300 chips.

Huang praised the Trump administration for recently approving sales of Nvidia’s H20 chips to China after such business was suspended in April, with the proviso that the company must pay a 15 percent tax to the U.S. government on those sales.

Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD, was told to pay the same tax on its sales of its MI380 chips to China.