China Urges Firms Not to Use Nvidia H20 Chips In New Guidance

Source: Bloomberg News

"China has urged local companies to avoid using Nvidia Corp.’s H20 processors, particularly for government-related purposes, complicating the chipmaker’s attempts to recoup billions in lost China revenue as well as the Trump administration’s unprecedented push to turn those sales into a US government windfall.

Over the past few weeks, Chinese authorities have sent notices to a range of firms discouraging use of the less-advanced semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named discussing sensitive information. The guidance was particularly strong against the use of H20s for any government or national security-related work by state enterprises or private companies, the people said.

In addition to Nvidia, Beijing’s overall push affects AI accelerators from Advanced Micro Devices Inc., one of the people said, though it’s unclear whether any letters specifically mentioned AMD’s MI308 chip. Both companies recently secured Washington’s approval to resume lower-end AI chip sales to China, on the controversial and legally questionable condition that they give the US government a 15% cut of the related revenue. Now, Nvidia and AMD face the challenge that their Chinese customers are under Beijing’s pressure not to make those purchases."

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-12/china-urges-firms-not-to-use-nvidia-h20-chips-in-new-guidance