NVIDIA Requires an Additional 300,000 H20 AI Chips for China

Alright, let’s dive into this rollercoaster of a situation with NVIDIA. It’s a wild ride, trust me. So, things are speeding like a runaway train for NVIDIA as they try to stay on top as the kingpin of AI chips. You know, having a little parade as the most valuable company out there. Just last month — or was it two weeks ago? Time flies, right? — the news broke that NVIDIA was gonna sell its H20 AI GPUs to China again. This was a big freakin’ deal because you know, the White House had slammed on the brakes since April 2025.

And now, boom — NVIDIA is in a mad dash, scrambling to keep up with the suddenly insane demand in China. Like, talk about whiplash!

They’ve got a mountain of these H20 chips, somewhere between 600K and 700K, but they’re still ringing up TSMC for another 300,000. Why? Well, the boss, Jensen Huang, had this whole speech about not cranking out more H20s unless they got swamped with orders — guess what? They’re drowning in them now.

Last year, they offloaded around 1 million H20s, if you can believe it. And with things kinda wobbly, it might take ages — maybe nine months? Who knows, these things always take forever — to get the supply chain humming smoothly again. But hey, the floodgates are open, and TSMC better get those chips rolling fast.

Now, here’s the fun part: the U.S. Department of Commerce is playing hard to get with those export licenses for H20s. NVIDIA is sitting there, tapping their fingers, waiting for the green light. Hurry up already!

So, why’s everyone in China drooling over these H20s? Well, they’re like the secret sauce in AI, especially since the U.S. slapped a ban on selling the superstar GPUs like Hopper H100, H200, and Blackwell B200. Sure, H20 ain’t the shiniest toy in the box, but when you’re short on options, it’s the go-to.

Alibaba, Tencent, all those big shots — they love using H20 to power up their AI gigs. Even DeepSeek gave a shout-out: they used a whopping 50,000 of those Hopper GPUs for their R1 model. That price tag? Somewhere in the $1.6 billion range… just for hardware. Mind = blown.

There was that whole ban last year too — April 2024, in case you missed it. That pushed Huawei to rush their own AI chip, the 910C, into overdrive. Desperate times, right?

Oh, and here’s a quirky twist — reports say old NVIDIA A100s and H100s are hitting the Chinese secondhand market. Totally not what NVIDIA wants. Their goal: control 90% of the AI chip action, because who doesn’t want to be the $4 trillion maestro, right?

Now, flipping back to the ban — what triggered the change of heart? Apparently, it’s all part of a bargaining chip (no pun intended) to get rare earth magnets flowing Stateside. Rumor has it, NVIDIA pulled the patriot card too, advocating hard for keeping U.S. tech at the forefront rather than letting other countries, maybe like Huawei, steal the spotlight.

Huang’s on a mission too; he’d rather see AI flourish on home turf technology. Makes sense, doesn’t it? The guy’s worried non-American chips could take over. Some folks — 20 savvy national security wizards to be exact — aren’t buying it though. They penned a letter, practically yelling, “Don’t give China our H20s! It’s a bad play!”

But wait, there’s more — NVIDIA got a nasty $5.5 billion slap from the earlier ban. Ouch. So, you can bet they’re itching to recoup in the Chinese arena.

Evidently, Trump’s squad thinks letting NVIDIA run the show with neutered AI chips for China is the golden ticket to stop folks like Huawei from muscling in. Plus, it keeps NVIDIA’s stock soaring sky-high. Rockets only, baby!