Beijing banned Nvidia gaming chips while the company’s Chief Executive Jensen Huang was visiting China with Donald Trump last week, the latest attack in the superpowers’ battle to dominate AI.
The chip was added to the list of banned goods at China’s customs checkpoints last Friday, according to a copy of the document seen by the FT and two people with knowledge of the matter.
The move highlights Beijing’s determination to keep out Nvidia’s chips, particularly inferior versions made to comply with US export controls. The Chinese government wants to support domestic chip makers like Huawei and Cambricon as they are on par with their US rivals.
The Nvidia chip, known as the RTX 5090D V2, was introduced last August to comply with US export controls. It was aimed at Chinese gamers and 3D animators, but it has also been bought up by AI developers, unlike the most sophisticated Nvidia products.
Nvidia’s Huang said Monday that he believes China’s market will become accessible to U.S. chip suppliers. “I think the market will open up over time,” he told Bloomberg TV.
Sales of other Nvidia chips including the H200 and H20, another China-specific product that Nvidia previously sold in the market, have been blocked by Beijing, even though the Trump administration has approved sales to Chinese tech groups such as Alibaba and Tencent.
<a href