Nvidia Denies Plans for Customized AI Chip for Chinese Market
Nvidia has denied recent rumors that it plans to launch a customized AI chip for Chinese customers by the end of the year.
The report, published on August 20, claimed that Nvidia was set to ship a small batch of an AI chip, based on licensed Groq technology, to Chinese customers before the end of the year. The chip is designed as a Language Processing Unit (LPU) and is meant to work alongside Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to accelerate AI chatbot response speeds.
An Nvidia spokesperson responded that the report was 'incorrect', stating that the company currently has no LPU sales in the Chinese market and that no China-exclusive LPU product exists on its product roadmap. This is not the first time Nvidia has clarified rumors regarding products targeting the Chinese market, as the company previously denied plans to sell Groq chips to China.
Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang publicly stated in May this year that the company had 'largely surrendered the advanced AI chip market in China to Huawei' due to U.S. export restrictions. Despite this, Nvidia is not entirely absent from the Chinese market, as it has received approval for the supply of H200 AI chips to select Chinese companies.