China tells its tech companies they can’t buy AI chips from Nivida (techcrunch.com)

China’s internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), has ordered domestic tech firms — including ByteDance and Alibaba — to stop testing, ordering and buying Nvidia AI hardware, specifically calling out the RTX Pro 6000D server tailored for the Chinese market. The move formalizes earlier guidance from Beijing that pushed companies toward local chipmakers and effectively shuts Nvidia out of direct sales in China even as the company has warned of billions in lost revenue (CEO Jensen Huang estimated roughly $8 billion in Q2 losses from being unable to sell certain AI chips like the H20 in China). The ban is significant because Nvidia’s accelerators are the global performance benchmark for large-scale model training and inference; losing access accelerates hardware fragmentation and forces Chinese firms to rely on domestic GPUs and AI accelerators that are improving but generally lag in ecosystem maturity. It also underscores the geopolitical split in semiconductor supply chains: U.S. export controls and later licensing changes (including a contested White House plan to capture revenue share) coupled with China’s protective measures make cross-border AI procurement politically fraught. Practically, expect slower rollout of cutting-edge models in China, increased investment in local silicon and software stacks, and potential interoperability and performance gaps between Chinese and global AI deployments.