The fresh US ban on exports of AI GPUs to China has sparked market speculation that the restriction may prompt Chinese clients to accelerate and increase shipment pull-ins for advanced GPUs from major suppliers Nvidia and AMD before a one-year buffer period expires on September 1, 2023, according to industry sources.
During the period, the two chipmakers will be allowed to carry out their order fulfillment and logistics for AI GPUs through their Hong Kong facilities.
Nvidia is expected to bear the brunt of the export ban on AI GPUs as it is the top supplier of advanced GPU chips, with a larger presence than AMD in the segment, the sources said. Intel, though already returning to the market for independent GPUs, is not on the restriction list, because its current GPU offerings are mainly for midrange consumer gaming applications, the sources continued.
The sources said GPU can best conduct AI-based parallel computing and boasts higher price-performance ratios than CPU. AI GPUs, in particular, have been widely used to support autonomous driving, datacenter, drones and IoT applications, and are also increasingly applied to high-end national defense, aerospace, healthcare, energy exploitation and scientific research segments.
Strong application of AI GPUs in the advanced military and defense-related equipment provides the right reason for the US government to ban shipments to China and Russia, the sources stressed. Currently, China has no homegrown AI GPU to replace Nvidia's, and its AI technology advancement will be blocked though its establishment of general datacenters will not be affected, the sources added.
The sources noted Chinese government and enterprises are expected to spend heavily purchasing as many AI GPUs from Nvidia and AMD as possible during the grace period for the export restriction, which may significantly drive up China-bound shipments from both chipmakers in the months ahead and more or less offset their future shipment losses.
Chinese clients are also expected to expand order placements with both chipmakers for general server-used GPUs or gaming GPUs, or with Xilinx under AMD for FPGA chips, lest exports of such chips offerings should also be banned later.
Nvidia will lose Chinese clients such as Baidu, Alibaba, Lenovo and Inspur after the export ban takes effect, but the impact on the chipmaker will remain manageable as it also maintains strong business ties with major US cloud services providers like AWS, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and server supply chain players including Foxconn, Inventec, Quanta Computer and Wistron, as well as brand vendors Dell, HPE, Supermicro, Asustek Computer and Gigabyte Technology, the sources said.
TSMC, now fabricating Nvidia H100 and A100 as well as AMD M1250 GPUs with advanced processes, will remain little affected by the upcoming export ban as related revenue ratio is lower than 1%, the sources said.
Article translated by Willis Ke
