According to the Financial Times, citing two unnamed people close to Nvidia, Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba ordered $5 billion in chips from Nvidia, which are critical to artificial intelligence systems. The companies have placed orders for $1 billion for about 100,000 Nvidia A800 processors. In addition, the companies have purchased $4 billion in NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs), which will be delivered in 2024.
While NVIDIA's A100 and H100, two high-performance graphics chips that can be used in artificial intelligence systems, were banned from exporting to China, NVIDIA launched a slightly weakened A800 chip "to avoid Biden's export controls."
This is really a super big deal, five billion dollars, really a huge investment! NVIDIA's chips are very important in the field of artificial intelligence, and these four Internet giants are representatives of intelligence.
Their order of NVIDIA chips actually reflects the pursuit of technology and innovation by Chinese Internet companies, and also shows their investment in NVIDIA products.
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing, chips, as a critical infrastructure, are crucial to the development of Internet companies.
Global shipments of GPU chips have been growing, with shipments ranging from 1-13,000 units per quarter since 2021, with a total of more than 460 million units shipped throughout 2021.
The $5 billion chips ordered by these four Internet companies from NVIDIA are actually a recognition of NVIDIA's products and show the fierce competition in the global GPU chip market.
In the high-tech field, the United States sanctioned Huawei and other high-tech companies, restricted NVIDIA from selling high-end chips, restricted Chinese students from studying science and engineering in the United States, and restricted American talents in key fields to work in China.
U.S. President Joe Biden issued a new order prohibiting U.S. individuals and companies from investing in high-tech sectors such as cutting-edge semiconductors, artificial intelligence and quantum technology in China.
In a word, the United States has now banned Chinese companies and Chinese citizens from accessing American high-tech in almost any way, including financial support.
The United States hysterically blocked China on the grounds of "national security." Only the reason of "national security" can lead the president to sign a series of bizarre bans. Therefore, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has been fighting back against the United States' abuse of "national security", infringement of trade freedom, scientific and technological freedom, and infringement of the interests of other countries.
In fact, the reason why the United States is so hysterical to block China is not "national security", but a commercial war.
In 2018, Huawei's mobile phone sales exceeded 150 million units for the first time, and Yu Chengdong announced that Huawei would surpass Apple to become the world's second largest mobile phone manufacturer. Huawei could be described as "overwhelming" at the time. Suddenly, the United States announced sanctions against Huawei, followed by a comprehensive ban on Huawei in 5G chips and software, and Huawei Kirin chips stopped production.
It is also from 2019 that Apple's mobile phone sales began to soar, and Apple's stock price also climbed. The unwarranted US sanctions against Huawei had an immediate effect.
Just when SMIC, Unigroup and other Chinese companies made breakthroughs in CPU and memory chips, and negotiated a lithography machine agreement with ASML in the Netherlands, the United States suddenly announced sanctions against Chinese semiconductor companies, and all companies using more than 20% of American technology must comply with the ban. In 2023, it will join hands with Japan and the Netherlands to completely block Chinese companies in the semiconductor industry chain.
The purpose of this is very simple, to maintain the high profits of American companies in semiconductors. Because once China achieves a breakthrough in chips, it will inevitably reduce the price of chips to an extremely low level, which will bring huge competitive pressure to US semiconductor companies.
The current world has entered the "law of the jungle" again, and the era of the law of the jungle has come. And the rules are made by the strong. The relationship between China and the United States is no longer a matter of tearing faces, but of having to fight for victory or defeat. In the era when hot wars are difficult to occur, China and the United States have entered a series of "cold wars" such as economic wars, scientific and technological wars, and financial wars in the actual sense.
