US chipmaker Intel does not appear to have received any exemptions under the new US trade policy, with the company reportedly needing an export license to sell its Gaudi chips to China, but the hit to business has been modest compared to NVIDIA/AMD.
NVIDIA's business in China has been hit hard, and it has been banned from selling its H20 AI accelerator to China, which will cause the company "billions of dollars" in losses. In addition to NVIDIA, AMD is also subject to export control restrictions. Intel has also been restricted in sales of high-end AI accelerators, putting its business at risk, the Financial Times reported (via Reuters ).
It was revealed that if the DRAM bandwidth of AI chips reaches or exceeds 1,400 GB/s, Intel will not be able to export these products to China, and these restrictions are targeted at the company's Gaudi chips. Intel's presence in China is not as large as Nvidia's, but the company has technology giants such as ByteDance as its only customers, which buy Intel's chips as an alternative to Nvidia. Since Intel needs to obtain an export license, it will need to go through a number of legal procedures before shipping the accelerator.
The Trump administration’s latest round of trade policies has put tech giants like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices in trouble. Both companies are currently banned from selling chips directly to China, making it harder to maintain their presence in the region. Worse, these policies will only benefit China in the long run, as China may opt for domestically produced alternative chips, such as Huawei's Ascend chips.