China tells technology companies to stop buying Nvidia's AI chips

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said on Wednesday the U.S. and Beijing "have larger agendas to work out" after media reports of China's internet regulator ordering top tech firms to halt purchases of the American company's AI chips and cancel existing orders. 

Successive U.S. administrations have restricted China's access to advanced chips, prompting Beijing to press domestic firms to turn away from American suppliers, hitting industry leaders like Nvidia. 

The report comes just days after Beijing accused the company of violating its anti-monopoly law, marking another flare-up in the trade war with Washington, while U.S. officials voiced national security concerns at trade talks with China in Madrid this week. 

The Cyberspace Administration of China has directed companies including ByteDance and Alibaba to terminate their testing and orders of the RTX Pro 6000D, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing three people with knowledge of the matter. 

"We can only be in service of a market if a country wants us to be," Huang said at a press conference in London, in response to a question about the CAC. 

"I'm disappointed with what I see, but they have larger agendas to work out between China and the United States and I'm patient about it. We'll continue to be supportive of the Chinese government and Chinese companies as they wish." Alibaba, Bytedance and the CAC did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. 

The fresh ban is stronger than the earlier guidance from regulators that focused on the H20, the previous version of Nvidia's China-tailored AI chip, the report said. 

Nvidia's RTX6000D, its newest artificial-intelligence chip tailored for the Chinese market, has seen only lukewarm demand, with some major tech firms opting not to place orders, Reuters first reported earlier this week. 

Several companies had indicated they would order tens of thousands of the RTX Pro 6000D and had started testing and verification work with Nvidia's server suppliers before telling them to stop the work after receiving the CAC order, FT reported.