Information has emerged about the development of an exclusive AI accelerator based on the new Nvidia Blackwell architecture. In the spring, at the GTC conference, the green corporation presented the Blackwell B200 graphics processors, which should provide a qualitative leap in performance for computing centers focused on AI. However, such powerful solutions will clearly fall under the export restrictions imposed by the United States on China. Therefore, the manufacturer is creating a special version with reduced performance. The new Nvidia B20 accelerator will replace the Nvidia H20, which became a cut-down version of the Hopper accelerators. According to Reuters, the supply of new accelerators to the Chinese market will be handled by Inspur.
It is interesting that such information appeared against the background of the news about a possible ban on Nvidia H20 supplies this fall. The Biden administration wants to tighten sanctions against China and a number of analysts predict that H20 will also fall under the new export restrictions. Therefore, it is not clear what level the new B20 devices should be to comply with the strict restrictions. Earlier, there was information that Nvidia was preparing a cut-down GeForce RTX 5090D for the Chinese market. But if sanctions are tightened, all these products may not go into mass production.
There is high demand for specialized AI processors within China. Domestic companies are trying to launch production of their own chips, in particular, Huawei offers infrastructure based on Ascend chips. But all these solutions are still inferior to Nvidia chips. Also, all major AI developments are based on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform. Therefore, even the cut-down Nvidia H20 are in high demand in China.
