Chinese IT giants Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent, and Alibaba have agreed to pay $5 billion for Nvidia chips, which are essential to their ambitions in artificial intelligence.
The IT corporations have made orders worth $1 billion with a US chip manufacturer for roughly 100,000 A800 processors, with delivery of the chips scheduled for 2023.
Nvidia chips
Additionally, $4 billion worth of graphics processing equipment has been ordered by Chinese firms, and it will arrive in 2024. While the US government has been financially supporting its own chip business, the Biden administration has implemented legislation aimed at safeguarding China’s semiconductor industry’s position.
Nvidia has made its A800 processors available in China in compliance with export control laws. The corporation made this action in response to a request from US authorities that it stop exporting to China its top processing chips for AI-related work.
- Chinese tech giants Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent, and Alibaba pay $5 billion for Nvidia chips.
- Nvidia releases A800 processors in China, complying with export control laws.
- Biden administration orders US investment limitations on Chinese technology.
Industry insiders theorize that this strategic move by the Chinese companies strengthens their position in the global race for artificial intelligence, aiming to lessen reliance on foreign chip suppliers and support domestic innovation in AI-driven industries like autonomous vehicles, machine learning, and natural language processing.
The investments also highlight the fierce battle between countries to dominate AI, demonstrating how important technology is to determining how industries will develop in the future.
According to an executive order issued by the Biden administration, US investments in critical Chinese technology segments are now subject to certain limitations, and any funding for other technological sectors must be approved by the government.
As China’s IT giants set out on a mission to firmly establish their roles in defining the AI-driven future, analysts are speculating on the reasons and intended uses of this historic acquisition of Nvidia chips.