The U.S. government announced on Tuesday that it will limit exports of NVIDIA’s H20 AI accelerator chip to China.
Reuters and other international media outlets reported that the U.S. government notified NVIDIA on April 9 that it would require permission to export the H20 chip to China.
NVIDIA stated that after receiving the initial notification on the 9th, it received another notice on Monday that this regulation would apply indefinitely. The company explained that concerns over the potential use of H20 chips in Chinese supercomputers formed the basis for this regulation.
The H20 was NVIDIA’s most advanced AI accelerator chip cleared for export to China, but now this option has been eliminated.
NVIDIA’s flagship AI accelerators sold to major U.S. tech companies include the H100 and Blackwell series, while the H20 is a slightly lower-spec product.
When China’s AI startup DeepSeek recently demonstrated performance surpassing OpenAI using the H20, the U.S. government appears to have decided to impose these export restrictions.
Due to the export restriction, NVIDIA projects a loss of 5.5 billion USD in the first quarter of its fiscal year (February to April).
Analysts suggest that the immediate impact on SK Hynix, which supplies NVIDIA with high-bandwidth memory (HBM), may remain limited.
Chae Min Sook, a Korea Investment & Securities analyst, noted that Samsung Electronics has not made any HBM sales for the H20. She added that SK Hynix completed additional sales of HBM3E for the H20 in March, so they will not face costs related to inventory write-offs like NVIDIA.
Chae further explained that SK Hynix has focused on selling 12Hi products to NVIDIA since the first quarter. Since the H20 represents additional quantities beyond the original plan, she estimates the annual HBM production plan will not change due to the H20 restrictions.
Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, commented on the H20 export restrictions on social media. He stated that while it will pressure stock prices, he is not overly concerned. Ives views this as part of the ongoing U.S.-China tech rivalry and emphasized that NVIDIA remains one of America’s most crucial assets and the only semiconductor manufacturer bringing AI to life.
