From Asia Times, December 14:
What’s behind China’s Nvidia monopoly investigation?
What would appear to be retaliation for latest US sanctions may really point to China’s emerging technological independence
China’s State Administration of Market Regulation is investigating American technology giant Nvidia for potential violation of anti-monopoly laws and an agreement on Nvidia’s acquisition of Mellanox Technologies in 2020.
The first allegation makes sense only as retaliation against the latest round of US sanctions on China, but the second may hold water. Nvidia is disputing the allegations.
In any case, Nvidia has denied rumors that it plans to reduce sales to China, which accounted for 15% of its revenue in the three months to October (Nvidia’s fiscal third quarter). In fact, Nvidia is expanding its presence in China with a focus on areas not subject to export controls, including autonomous driving.
For China to accuse Nvidia of monopoly practices seems illogical because US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and her department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) have already undermined the company’s core data center business there by banning the export of its most advanced GPU processors to China.
On the contrary, perhaps China should thank the US government for giving Huawei and other Chinese IC design companies the opportunity and a strong incentive to build up their own AI processor business while their most formidable competitor’s hands are tied.
In 2022, the BIS banned exports of Nvidia’s top-end A100 and H100 processors to China. In 2023, it banned exports of the A800, a dumbed-down version of the A100 designed specifically to meet BIS requirements.
The A800 was a best seller in China so the BIS lowered the bar, forcing Nvidia to design another chip, the H20, with even lower performance. But Chinese AI processors, led by Huawei’s 910B, proved to be competitive with the H20, which has not sold well in China. And Huawei claims that its successor, the 910C, matches the performance of Nvidia’s H100.
In any case, Baidu, Tencent and other Chinese customers began switching to Huawei and other domestic chips when it became clear that US sanctions were not based on strict technical criteria related to national security as US government officials claim but could be changed at any time simply to punish China.
Exports of Nvidia’s new and considerably more powerful Blackwell B200 AI processors to China are banned under existing sanctions, but a dumbed-down version that may be called B20 is reportedly being prepared. But why would it be any more successful than the H20?
As for Mellanox Technologies, the Chinese government approved the acquisition on condition that access to Mellanox interconnect technology would remain open, that Nvidia would supply Mellanox interconnect products to Chinese customers without discrimination, not bundle them with its own GPUs, and guarantee the interoperability of its own GPUs with other interconnect products.
Nikkei Asia notes that “It is not clear which of these terms Nvidia is alleged to have been broken.”....
....MUCH MORE
Recently - "Nvidia Steps Up Hiring in China to Focus on AI-Driven Cars" (NVDA)
And September 2018 - So, What's New With NVIDIA? (NVDA):
Nvidia Debuts New AI Supercomputer Chip For Self-Driving Cars
They grow up so fast. The latter post notes: The stock set new all time highs Tuesday, yesterday and again this morning.
$66.59 -0.19, last.
Factor in Nvidia stock splits of 4:1 on July 20, 2021 and 10:1 on June 10, 2024 and that $66.59—which itself was a triple from the point where our interest was piqued in 2015—and you get to $1.66475 on the old stock.
In today's after-hours session the stock settled at 130.91 -1.09 (-0.83%)
