Nvidia sees tepid demand for RTX6000D AI chip from Chinese tech firms: sources

Nvidia’s RTX6000D, its newest artificial intelligence chip tailored for the Chinese market, has seen only lukewarm demand with some major tech firms opting not to place orders, two people with knowledge of procurement discussions said.

The RTX6000D, designed mainly for AI inference tasks, is seen as expensive for what it does, according to the two people.

They added that testing of samples showed its performance lags the RTX5090 – a chip banned by the US government for use in mainland China, but which is still readily available through grey market channels at less than half the RTX6000D’s price of around 50,000 yuan (US$7,000).

Chinese technology giants – including Alibaba Group Holding, Tencent Holdings and ByteDance – are also waiting for clarity on whether orders for Nvidia’s H20 chip will be processed, separate sources said earlier this month. The US firm regained permission to sell the H20 in July, but shipments have yet to restart. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Chinese firms are also hoping that Nvidia’s B30A – a much more powerful graphics processing unit (GPU) than the H20 – will be approved by Washington.

Those three chips are downgraded versions of GPUs sold outside China, developed to comply with export restrictions put in place by the US, which wants to rein the mainland’s tech progress and retain its lead in AI development.

South China Morning Post