US commerce sanctions have restricted Nvidia from exporting its high-end GPUs such because the A100 and H100 to China.
As an answer, Nvidia developed the A800 and H800 GPUs particularly for Chinese language shoppers, however these have been additionally blocked by up to date US controls final October, resulting in the creation of the H20.
Tailor-made particularly for the Chinese language market, this GPU is aimed toward AI coaching and comes with a price ticket of between $12,000 and $15,000, in line with South China Morning Put up which quoted nameless trade sources.
Arising quick
Nvidia’s newest price range AI GPU has reportedly now landed in China, however it faces stiff competitors from its personal earlier fashions and Huawei’s secret weapon, the Ascend 910B. The H20’s computing energy is claimed to be much like Huawei’s GPU, a chip developed by the Chinese language tech large, which is presently underneath US commerce sanctions. The Ascend 910B, though not formally confirmed by Huawei, is obtainable by means of numerous gross sales channels in China.
Nevertheless, the efficiency of Nvidia’s H20 appears to be lower than its predecessors. In line with some sources, the H20’s efficiency lags considerably behind the A800 and A100, though full inner testing has but to be accomplished.
By way of value, a high-end server with eight Nvidia H20 playing cards is priced at round $195,800. By comparability, a Huawei server embedded with 910B chips offered for about $200,000 in January of this 12 months.
Whereas a couple of Chinese language prospects have reportedly obtained H20 samples for testing and pre-orders are actually open, Nvidia’s GPU is anticipated to succeed in China within the second quarter, with shipments of merchandise containing H20 anticipated to begin in July.
Nvidia’s GPUs are in excessive demand globally, with Chinese language tech giants spending billions to accumulate the GPUs to energy new AI applied sciences. The corporate’s knowledge middle phase surpassed video video games to change into the biggest income contributor in fiscal 2023, with report income of $14.51 billion.
Nevertheless, it stays to be seen how the H20 shall be obtained by Chinese language prospects, given its restricted capabilities because of the new US rules.