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Photo = Yonhap news |
[Alpha Biz= Paul Lee] The Trump administration has decided to scrap its plan to restrict the export of NVIDIA's H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chip to China, U.S. public broadcaster NPR reported on Wednesday.
Amid ongoing U.S. efforts to curb exports of cutting-edge semiconductors to China on national security grounds, the H20 chip stands out as the most advanced AI chip that can still be legally sold to China under existing export controls.
Although the H20 falls short in performance compared to NVIDIA’s latest AI chip, Blackwell, it is equipped with high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in Blackwell, offering some performance enhancements.
The U.S. government, under the Biden administration, had been preparing additional export restrictions for months, reportedly including the H20 among the targeted items.
The H20 gained attention in January when Chinese AI startup DeepSeek launched a cost-effective AI model, which was reported to be powered in part by the H20 chip.
Sources told NPR that the new restrictions were expected to be implemented this week, but the H20 was ultimately removed from the list.
NPR also reported that the decision to exclude the H20 came shortly after NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang attended a dinner last week at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida residence of former President Donald Trump.
AlphaBIZ Paul Lee(hoondork1977@alphabiz.co.kr)
