China Bans Purchase Of Nvidia AI Chips, Technological Rivalry With The US Heats Up

China has banned domestic companies from buying Nvidia's newest AI chip, RTX Pro 6000D. (photo: x @hectorrgonzalez ·)

JAKARTA - China has officially banned domestic companies from buying Nvidia's newest AI chip, RTX Pro 6000D. This decision adds to a new chapter in technology rivalry between the world's two largest economic powers.

According to reports, China's Cyber Administration (Cyberspace Administration of China) has instructed major technology companies such as Alibaba and ByteDance to cancel their orders, although thousands of units of the chips have been previously ordered. In fact, the RTX Pro 6000D was specially designed by Nvidia to meet the needs of the Chinese market.

This ban comes after an agreement was previously reached during the administration of President Donald Trump. At that time, the US allowed the sale of the Nvidia H20 chip to China on the condition that 15 percent of the profits were handed over to the United States government. The agreement is considered a middle ground for semiconductor export restrictions imposed since the Joe Biden administration.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who is in London, expressed his disappointment with this decision. "We may contribute more to the Chinese market than much of other countries. I am disappointed by what I see... But they have a bigger agenda between China and the United States, and I understand it," he said.

The strong reaction came from the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, who called China an equal 'against' the United States. In an interview with CNBC, Johnson accused China of intellectual property theft and ignoring international trade deals. "It's not the United States' fault if this relationship is tense. It's China's fault," he stressed.

The move to ban Nvidia's chips confirms that the technological relationship between the two countries is still far from peaceful. The US continues to seek to limit the export of advanced chips to China on national security grounds, while Beijing is accelerating the development of its domestic semiconductor industry to reduce dependence on foreign products.

This latest decision shows that geopolitical competition in the mastery of artificial intelligence and semiconductor technology is deepening, and will most likely continue without completion in the near future.