Nvidia’s China-only AI chip sees weak demand as firms await H20, B30A nod - report

Investing.com -- Nvidia’s newest artificial intelligence chip for the Chinese market, the RTX6000D, has drawn only modest interest from buyers since launch, with some major technology firms opting not to order it, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with procurement discussions.

The RTX6000D, aimed primarily at AI inference tasks, carries a price tag of around 50,000 yuan ($7,000). But industry players view it as expensive relative to its capabilities, according to Reuters.

Testing showed the chip underperforms the RTX5090, a more powerful model that U.S. export restrictions bar from being sold in China. The RTX5090, however, remains widely available on the grey market at less than half the RTX6000D’s price, the report added.

Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance have also held back from placing orders, Reuters said in a report earlier this month.

The companies are awaiting clarity on whether Nvidia’s H20 chip — a downgraded Hopper-based model — will be shipped following U.S. approval in July. Deliveries have yet to resume.

The companies are further pinning hopes on Nvidia’s B30A, a Blackwell-based chip expected to deliver up to six times the H20’s performance at roughly double the cost, though its approval by Washington remains uncertain.

The lukewarm response to the RTX6000D contrasts with upbeat sell-side expectations. JPMorgan estimated last month that about 1.5 million units would be produced in the second half of 2025, while Morgan Stanley forecast Nvidia would have as many as 2 million units in its pipeline.

Nvidia only began shipments of the RTX6000D this week, the report said.

“The market is competitive – we offer the best products we can,” an Nvidia spokesperson told Reuters.

The launch comes at a sensitive moment for Nvidia in China. Beijing on Monday accused the company of violating anti-monopoly law, a move that added to uncertainties just as U.S. and Chinese delegations met in Madrid for trade talks.

Chinese regulators have also summoned domestic firms, including Tencent and ByteDance, to question their purchases of the H20 and to express concerns over information security, Reuters said.

Nvidia has rejected such concerns, stating its products contain no backdoor risks.

The RTX6000D is built on Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture, fitted with conventional GDDR memory and bandwidth of 1,398 gigabytes per second — just below the 1.4 terabyte per second threshold set under U.S. restrictions.

It was partly designed to replace the H20, which was banned from sale in April before Washington reversed course.

By contrast, the H20 is priced between $10,000 and $12,000 and offers 4 terabytes per second of bandwidth.