The United States restricts the export of AI chips to China China is facing the challenge of "special version".
In the current era of rapid technological development, artificial intelligence (AI) has become the top priority of scientific and technological development in various countries. As the "heart" of AI computing, the R&D and application of AI chips have attracted much attention from all countries. In recent years, the U.S. government has imposed strict restrictions on the export of AI chips to China by U.S. chip companies, including AMD, due to technological blockade and national security concerns, which has brought huge challenges to China's AI industry.
As early as October 2022, the U.S. government issued a series of regulations restricting the export of the most advanced AI chips to China. Under the new rules, chipmakers will need to obtain permission from the U.S. Department of Commerce to export chips used in advanced AI computing and supercomputing to China. This restriction has directly affected the business of American chip giants such as AMD in the Chinese market.
At the end of last year, the U.S. Department of Commerce once again upgraded its chip export control measures to China. AMD's new MI300 series of AI chips, the flagship MI309, is considered too powerful and must be licensed by the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) before it can be exported to China. This has undoubtedly brought great obstacles to AMD's development in the Chinese market.
In the face of U.S. restrictions, AMD and other U.S. chip companies had to "tailor" a "special version" of AI chips with degraded performance for the Chinese market. The performance of these "special version" chips is often only about 20% of the original, and compared with the previous high-end products in the Chinese market, the performance gap is huge. This has sparked strong dissatisfaction among Chinese businesses and users.
Industry insiders pointed out that the United States' excessive restrictions on chip exports to China may stimulate China to accelerate its independent research and development of AI chips and reduce its dependence on foreign countries. Such unilateral restrictive measures have also brought great uncertainty to the global semiconductor industry and affected the mutually beneficial cooperation between Chinese and foreign companies.
Chinese companies are not buying it and are turning to the purchase of domestic AI chips
In the face of the "special version" of AI chips launched by American chip companies, Chinese enterprises and users have received a mediocre response. They believe that the performance of these "special version" chips has been degraded too much, and the performance gap with domestic chips is rapidly narrowing, so they have begun to turn to the purchase of domestic alternatives.
In the case of Nvidia, the company's "special version" of the AI chip A800 launched for the Chinese market is only about 20% of the performance of its flagship A100. This kind of significant performance degradation is difficult for Chinese companies to accept. The head of a leading artificial intelligence company said that the performance of the A800 can no longer meet their needs, and instead of buying this "crippled version" of the chip, it is better to purchase domestic chips directly.
AMD's "special edition" AI chip, MI309, has also encountered the same skepticism. Although AMD claims that the MI309 is "tailor-made" for the Chinese market, the actual performance is only about 20% of its high-end version. This has disappointed Chinese users, who believe that AMD's "customization" is just another way of saying downgrade.
Industry insiders pointed out that the reason why the American chip giant launched these "special version" chips is mainly to bypass the export restrictions of the US government and maintain business in China. But they underestimate the performance requirements of Chinese companies, and this "pebble to stone" approach is destined to be ineffective.
As the pace of China's independent research and development of AI chips continues to accelerate, the performance of domestic chips can already be comparable to that of "special version" chips, or even better in some aspects. More and more Chinese companies have begun to turn to the purchase of domestic AI chips to get rid of the dilemma of foreign dependence.
This trend has brought severe challenges to the business of American chip companies in China. If they continue to stick to the "special version" route, they may further lose the Chinese market, but if they want to sell high-end chips in China, they will face restrictions from the US government. It's a dilemma.
The development of the industry is facing new challenges in the development of the AI chip competition between China and the United States
The U.S. chip export restrictions to China have not only brought severe challenges to China's AI industry, but also had a certain impact on the development of the U.S. domestic industry.
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has publicly stated that overly broad unilateral chip export controls could harm the U.S. semiconductor ecosystem. If overseas customers switch to other suppliers, it will weaken the global competitiveness of U.S. companies.
The revenue obtained by American chip giants such as AMD and Nvidia through sales to China is an important source to support their research and development of new products. Once they lose the huge market of China, their R&D investment will be seriously affected, which may break the virtuous cycle of profiting from chip sales in China and reinvesting in R&D.
Domestic industry in the United States is also calling on the government to weigh the pros and cons and avoid the negative impact of excessive restrictions. They believe that a balance should be struck between safeguarding national security and protecting industrial development, rather than blindly restricting them.
The Chinese side has also expressed strong dissatisfaction with the US approach. China's Ministry of Commerce criticized the U.S. for abusing export control measures, which has brought great uncertainty to the global semiconductor industry and affected the mutually beneficial cooperation between Chinese and foreign companies.
Industry experts pointed out that the U.S. restrictions may be counterproductive, but instead accelerate the pace of China's independent innovation in the field of AI chips. China is expected to achieve autonomy and controllability in more AI chip fields and reduce its dependence on foreign countries.
The technological competition and wrestling between China and the United States in the field of AI chips will continue to escalate. On the one hand, the United States hopes to contain China's development through restrictive measures, and on the other hand, it is also worried about affecting local industries, while China is accelerating independent innovation and calling for maintaining the stability of the global industrial chain.
The trend of this "chip war" will directly affect the future pattern of the global AI industry. Whether the two sides can reach a new balance on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit will determine whether the AI chip industry can maintain healthy development.