Nvidia on Tuesday notified regulators that it expects a $5.5 billion hit this quarter due to a new US licensing requirement on the primary chip it can legally sell in China.
US officials last week told Nvidia it must obtain licenses to export its H20 chips to China because of concerns they may be used in supercomputers there, the Silicon Valley company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, which overtook Microsoft and Apple as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company – Copyright AFP/File I-Hwa CHENG
Shares of Nvidia, which have already seen high volatility since Trump’s April 2 tariffs announcement, were down over six percent in after-market trades.
The new licensing rule applies to Nvidia GPUs (graphics processing units) with bandwidth similar to that of the H20.
The United States had already barred exports to China of Nvidia’s most sophisticated GPUs, tailored for powering top-end artificial intelligence models.
Nvidia was told the licensing requirement on H20 chips will last indefinitely, it said in the filing.
Nvidia’s current fiscal quarter ends on April 27.
“First quarter results are expected to include up to approximately $5.5 billion of charges associated with H20 products for inventory, purchase commitments, and related reserves,” Nvidia said in the filing.
