NVIDIA & AMD Gear Up to Re-Enter China With New, Trimmed-down AI Chips

After years of tightening export restrictions, U.S. chip giants NVIDIA and AMD have found a new way into China’s AI market—by dialing things down.

NVIDIA and AMD are readying new AI chips for China

The U.S. government has made it nearly impossible to ship advanced AI chips to China. Both the Trump and Biden administrations pushed export controls, blocking NVIDIA’s H20 and other high-end models.

Now, with that path closed, NVIDIA and AMD are preparing new lower-power versions designed to stay within the rules. According to Digitimes (via TechCrunch), NVIDIA will launch a “B20” chip, while AMD is preparing the Radeon AI PRO R9700.

These GPUs won’t match the performance of their global counterparts, but they’ll be good enough to support Chinese-made AI models like DeepSeek. Sales are expected to begin in July 2025.

The return comes at a cost

Earlier this week, Reuters reported that NVIDIA’s Blackwell-based B20 may land in China at a price between $6,500 and $8,000—less than the $12,000 H20. AMD’s offerings will likely target the same niche: a performance compromise that still satisfies the hunger for AI compute.

NVIDIA recently said it expects to lose $8 billion in revenue in Q2 due to ongoing restrictions. Half of that came from China canceling H20 orders. So, these downgraded chips are a way of recovery. Moreover, it’s clear U.S. chipmakers won’t give up the Chinese market. But for now, they’ll have to settle for second-best silicon.