Details
💸 US Takes a Cut: Nvidia and AMD will pay 15% of their China revenues (incl. H20, MI308) to the US government in exchange for export licenses. A government official confirmed the model.👀 Mistrust in Beijing: A CCTV-linked WeChat channel in China warns Nvidia’s H20 is “unsafe” and could even be shut down remotely via a hardware “backdoor”; Nvidia denies any backdoors.🧩 HBM as Leverage: In trade talks, Beijing is pushing for looser export controls on High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). HBM is central to compute-intensive AI workloads.
Why It Matters
- Margins vs. Market Access: The 15% levy squeezes gross margins but opens China sales for H20/MI308.
- Security Narrative: Backdoor claims stoke regulatory uncertainty in China and raise audit, certification, and compliance burdens across the customer chain (cloud, OEMs).
- HBM Bottleneck: Easing HBM controls could shift cost curves and lead times across the AI stack (GPU + HBM), impacting roadmaps for hyperscalers and chip suppliers.
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