In March 2024, Nvidia introduced its new Blackwell B200 chip. A beastly processor with 208 billion transistors that is considered the most advanced at the moment for AI. All the big tech companies want it. It is what has led Nvidia to become the most valuable company in the world. But not everyone is enjoying Nvidia’s technology.
Due to restrictions imposed by the United States government, China doesn’t have access to the latest from NvidiaFor now, Chinese firms are looking at alternatives such as cloud computing, but these are just a stopgap compared to using Nvidia’s best chips directly.
But this situation is about to change. A few weeks ago we learned of Nvidia’s plans to sell its GPUs in the Middle East, but now it is planning a much more ambitious strategy: Nvidia will also sell its latest chips in China, according to reports. Reuters.
Nvidia to create China-specific versions of Blackwell
B200 chipsets will go into mass production later this year. They represent a huge leap forward, with up to 20 petaFLOPS of performance in liquid-cooled data centers. According to sources familiar with the project, Nvidia to work with Inspur, one of its major distributors in Chinato create an alternative version of the B200 that can be sold in the Asian country.
This version of the B200 would be codenamed B20 and would retain the same features. Since the imposition of chip restrictions, Nvidia has created three specific versions of its chips for the Chinese market. But to date they were not its most advanced processor.
The Nvidia L2, L20, and H20a were GPUs that were approved by the US Department of Commerce for sale in China, but their most advanced model, the H20, was almost seven times lower than the H100We’ll see how well the B20 version will compare to the B200.
Nvidia’s interest in China is no coincidence. It is a huge market and represents around 17% of Nvidia’s annual revenueThis is a huge percentage, but lower than the 26% that existed two years ago before the United States decided to apply the veto due to its fear that this technology could boost China’s military capabilities.
With this move Nvidia wants to regain ground in China. For the moment have sold over a million H20 GPUs this yearwhich is equivalent to about 12 billion dollars.
We’ll see if the B20 GPUs arrive later this year or if, as with the H20, they end up being delayed. The battle for artificial intelligence requires a lot of power and there is no company capable of offering what Nvidia has.
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