Chinese authorities are advising local companies against using Nvidia’s H20 processors, especially for government-related purposes, according to Bloomberg News sources. Notices have been issued to various firms discouraging the use of these less-advanced semiconductors, with a strong emphasis on avoiding Nvidia’s H20s for government or national security tasks by both state-owned and private enterprises.
Reuters has not been able to verify this report immediately. Nvidia has not yet commented on this matter outside of normal business hours.
Nvidia previously stated in July that their products do not contain any “backdoors” that could enable remote access or control, in response to China’s concerns regarding potential security risks in their H20 artificial intelligence chip.
US President Donald Trump hinted on Monday that he may permit Nvidia to sell a reduced version of its upcoming advanced GPU chip, Blackwell, in China. This move comes despite Washington’s deep-rooted apprehensions that China could exploit US AI capabilities to bolster its military strength.
Nvidia is currently only allowed to export the H20 chip to China, which is based on the older Hopper architecture platform. The Trump administration approved the export of H20 AI to China last month. Additionally, a recent agreement between the Trump administration and Nvidia, as well as AMD, stipulates that the US government will receive 15% of the revenue from sales of certain advanced chips in China.
China’s new guidance against using certain chips also affects AI accelerators from Advanced Micro Devices, as per the Bloomberg report. It remains unclear whether Chinese authorities have specifically mentioned AMD’s MI308 chip in any notices.
AMD has not provided a comment on this matter outside of regular business hours.