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Published on
August 19, 2025
5 min read
NVIDIA’s New B30A AI Chip for China Will be Powerful than the H20
NVIDIA is making a new AI chip called B30A for the Chinese market. According to Reuters, the new chip is being developed using the company’s latest Blackwell architecture, which will make the NVIDIA’s B30A AI chip for China more powerful than the H20 chips.
B30A vs H20 Chip Performance
NVIDIA’s new AI chip outperforms H20 chips due to its architecture. Sources close to NVIDIA say the B30A chip will use the single-die configuration. This type of configuration involves placing all the main parts of an integrated circuit on one continuous piece of silicon. With this design, the new chip is likely to deliver 50% of the raw computing power available in the more sophisticated dual-die design that NVIDIA used in its B300 accelerator card.
The B30A chip will also feature high-bandwidth memory and NVLink technology to facilitate fast data transmission between processors. NVIDIA integrated the same features in the H20 AI chips whose design utilizes the Hopper architecture. The chip manufacturer hasn’t finalized the B30A specifications yet. However, the company plans to test it with Chinese customers as early as September 2025.
“We evaluate a variety of products for our roadmap, so that we can be prepared to compete to the extent that governments allow. Everything we offer is with the full approval of the applicable authorities and designed solely for beneficial commercial use,” NVIDIA’s statement read in part.
US-China Trade Tensions
Last year, NVIDIA generated 13% of its annual revenue from China. As the chip maker seeks to grow its market share in the Asian country, the extent to which China can access America’s advanced AI chips is one of the issues that have fueled U.S.-China trade tensions in recent months.
The US government only allowed NVIDIA to resume H20 AI chip sales to China in July 2025. These chips were specifically designed for the Chinese market after the US government introduced export restrictions in 2023. However, NVIDIA was advised to stop exporting them to China in April 2025.
Last week, US President Donald Trump indicated that NVIDIA may be allowed to sell a scaled-down version of its most advanced AI chips in China. The President made this suggestion after he announced an unprecedented deal that will see NVIDIA and AMD share 15% of the revenue they generate from China-related chip sales with the US government. But even with this suggestion, regulatory approval is still not guaranteed as Washington remains apprehensive about allowing China too much access to US AI technology.
The Global AI Race Question
US lawmakers have raised concerns that giving China access to scaled-down versions of America’s AI chips could hinder US efforts to lead in the global AI race. However, NVIDIA and other chip makers hold that maintaining Chinese interest in American AI technology is critical to maintaining industry leadership. NVIDIA chips work with the company’s software tools to keep developers from shifting to offerings developed by Chinese competitors such as Huawei.
In recent months, Huawei has made significant progress in chip development. Aspects of the tech giant’s latest AI models like computing power are said to be on par with NVIDIA’s models. However, analysts say the Chinese smartphone company still lags behind in areas like memory bandwidth capabilities and software ecosystem.
In recent weeks, the Chinese state media has complicated NVIDIA’s efforts to retain its market share after it claimed that the company’s chips may pose security risks. The state media further claimed that Chinese authorities had cautioned tech firms in the country about buying H20 chips.
Earlier this month, Chinese regulators summoned NVIDIA representatives to discuss US location-tracking efforts and explain the security risks associated with the H20 AI chips. The US government has been looking for ways to build enhanced location trackers into advanced AI chips as part of its efforts to control the flow of American-made semiconductors to the Chinese market. Chinese regulators are concerned by potential backdoors that could allow US authorities to access or control the chips remotely.
