Nvidia is preparing to introduce a more affordable artificial intelligence chip for the Chinese market, which could enter mass production as early as June, according to a Reuters report quoting sources.
This new chip will belong to Nvidia’s latest Blackwell-series AI processors. The report said it would be priced between $6,500 and $8,000 — significantly less than the now-restricted H20 model, which cost around $10,000 to $12,000.
The lower price reflects its weaker specifications and simpler manufacturing requirements.
It will be based on Nvidia's RTX Pro 6000D, a server-class graphics processor and will use conventional GDDR7 memory instead of more advanced high bandwidth memory, the two sources told Reuters.
They added it would not use Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co's advanced Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology.
China remains a huge market for Nvidia, accounting for 13 percent of its sales in the past financial year. It's the third time that Nvidia has had to tailor a GPU for the world's second-largest economy after restrictions from US authorities who are keen to stymie Chinese technological development.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said last week the company's older Hopper architecture - which the H20 uses - can no longer accommodate further modifications under current U.S. export restrictions, according to Reuters.
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