The American company Nvidia, which is currently the largest player in the global chip manufacturing industry, intends to release a special version of one of its gaming processors for the Chinese market.
A special processor configuration designed for the specified Asian country is characterized by a reduced level of performance. The change in characteristics will allow the chip manufacturer to comply with the export rules imposed by Washington against Beijing.
The product page on Nvidia’s website for Chinese consumers contains information about the new RTX 4090D version. The employees of the company, while communicating with media representatives, said that a special modification of the gaming processor for the Asian country will be released in January. This product has 11% fewer CUDA(Compute Unified Device Architecture) cores compared to those versions sold outside China.
RTX is a line of advanced Nvidia gaming GPUs. The CUDA architecture created by this company is actually the graphical equivalent of CPU cores, which are processor units.
A spokesperson of the firm, while communicating with media representatives, focused on the fact that the new version of the RTX 4090D was developed following the requirements of the current norms of the state export control of the United States, stressing that this work was carried out within the framework of interaction with the American government.
The rules for the supply of technological products outside the United States, established by Washington, are primarily focused on regulating the sale of chips abroad. In this case, it means microcircuits, which are used in apps with artificial intelligence. Chips applied in the gaming industry are also the object of increased attention by the American authorities as part of export controls. Similar products can too be used in artificial intelligence systems.
In October, Nvidia RTX 4090 was added to the list of American-made chips subject to special export control measures. The relevant decision was made by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Nvidia’s website notes that the RTX 4090D uses machine intelligence to improve performance levels. This company is currently one of the main beneficiaries of the global artificial intelligence boom. Since the beginning of the current year, the chip manufacturer’s share price has more than tripled. The company’s market cost has reached the landmark mark of $1 billion.
The increased interest in machine intelligence is largely due to the chatbot ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI. This digital product, which debuted at the end of 2022, demonstrated impressive abilities related to working with information and generating unique content based on consumer requests.
Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang this year announced his company’s intention to develop special versions of flagship products for the Chinese market. In this case, the brand will be guided by the export control rules introduced by the administration of US President Joe Biden. Washington has restricted the supply of advanced chips to China to slow down the development of the artificial intelligence industry in the Asian country.
US officials, justifying the need for a special export control regime concerning the specified state, focus on Nvidia’s machine intelligence accelerators, the line of which is headed by the H100. Chips in this category, based on the technology used in video cards, have become the flagship product for the mass adoption of hardware with artificial intelligence support by owners of large data centers.
Last year, after Washington tightened export regulations against Beijing, Nvidia created less productive versions of its microcircuits for the Asian market. In October, the mentioned rules were once again tightened. For this reason, the performance of American chips allowed for shipments to China has been reduced. Nvidia stated the intention to develop once again special versions of its products to comply with the new export rules for export to the Asian country.
As we have reported earlier, Nvidia Reportedly Sees Vietnam as Potential Second Home.
Serhii Mikhailov
Serhii’s track record of study and work spans six years at the Faculty of Philology and eight years in the media, during which he has developed a deep understanding of various aspects of the industry and honed his writing skills; his areas of expertise include fintech, payments, cryptocurrency, and financial services, and he is constantly keeping a close eye on the latest developments and innovations in these fields, as he believes that they will have a significant impact on the future direction of the economy as a whole.
