Nvidia is working on China-tailored chips again after US export ban, The Information reports

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(Reuters) – Nvidia has told some of its biggest Chinese customers that it is tweaking the design of its artificial intelligence chips so they can be sold to Chinese businesses without clashing with U.S. export rules, The Information reported on Friday.

The chip giant has spoken with customers, including Alibaba Group, TikTok-parent ByteDance and Tencent Holdings, the report said, citing three people involved in the conversations.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang alerted customers about his plans while on his trip to Beijing, according to the report. Huang’s Beijing trip in mid-April came days after the U.S. government limited exports of its H20 AI chips to China.

The export curbs on the primary chip Nvidia was legally permitted to sell in China would result in charges of $5.5 billion for the company, it had then said.

Nvidia has told customers that a sample of the new chip will be available as soon as June, The Information reported. The company also said it was still working on a China-specific version of its latest-generation AI chip, Blackwell, according to the report.

Nvidia declined to comment on the report. ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent and the U.S. Commerce Department did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

The sale of Nvidia’s advanced AI chips to China — a key market for the company — has been a contentious topic, with U.S. officials moving to restrict the flow of the most powerful chips to China to keep ahead in the AI race.

Following those restrictions, the company began designing chips tailored for China that would come as close as possible to U.S. limits.

(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)