Giving Nvidia’s Blackwell chip to China would slash US’s AI advantage, experts say
- Trump suggested he may negotiate with Xi over exports of Nvidia AI chip
- Exporting lesser version of Nvidia’s Blackwell would still cut US AI advantage
- Allowing the chips to China could effectively do away with AI chip export controls
Oct 29 (Reuters) – A leading Republican voice in Congress on China policy said on Wednesday that selling Nvidia’s best AI chip to China “would be akin (to) giving Iran weapons grade uranium”, as experts argued it would shrink the American advantage in artificial intelligence.
House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar said in a post on X that he told the administration,
We cannot sell the latest advanced AI chips to our country’s primary adversary.
His comment came after President Donald Trump opened the door on Wednesday to Nvidia (NVDA.O), selling a lesser version of its Blackwell AI chip to China.
U.S. trade experts said giving China the chips could effectively spell the end of U.S. chip export restrictions, which were put in place in 2022 to make sure Beijing’s military would not benefit from American technology, and to slow the development of China’s AI efforts.
Tim Fist, co-author of an analysis, of the impact of allowing China the B30A chip, a downgraded version of Nvidia’s state-of-the-art Blackwell chip, said:
If we decide to export B30As, it would dramatically shrink the U.S.’s main advantage it currently has over China in AI,
A spokesperson from Nvidia disagreed, saying the U.S. policy of controlling chips under President Joe Biden did not give America an advantage in AI. “Winning the support of mainstream developers everywhere enhances America’s economic and national security,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The statement said,
China has more than enough domestic chips for all of its military applications and has no reason to use our products for that purpose,
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and 11 Democratic senators also urged Trump on Wednesday to not lift restrictions on AI chips and American technology in pursuit of a trade deal.
Moolenaar said,
These chips should instead go to the U.S. companies that are building American AI dominance for years to come — not the future of the Chinese military.
TRUMP MAY DISCUSS ‘SUPER-DUPER’ CHIP
Trump said on Wednesday he might speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping about Nvidia’s “super-duper” Blackwell chip at their Thursday meeting. The comments echoed those he made in August suggesting he might allow a 30% or 50% scaled-down version of Nvidia’s top chip to China.
But, Fist said, the B30A is a version of the best Nvidia chip in different packaging: China could buy twice as many and get the same result, likely at the same price.
A spokesperson for Nvidia declined comment on the details about the chip.
In the paper, published on Saturday, Fist and his co-authors analyzed nine scenarios covering a range of export strategies the administration might take for a downgraded Blackwell chip.
BEST- AND WORST-CASE SCENARIOS
In the best scenario, where no powerful chips are exported to China next year, the U.S. would have 30 times the AI computing power of China.
In the worst, where the U.S. allows the export of the B30A and comparable chips from other U.S. companies, China could surpass the U.S. in terms of how much AI computing power they gain in 2026.
Even in a median scenario, where a small amount of the chips is exported, the U.S. advantage shrinks to four times China’s computing power, the analysis found.
Fist, director of emerging technology policy at the Institute for Progress, a Washington-based think tank, said:
If any meaningful quantities are allowed, it’s a huge change,
“It’s functionally ending the export control regime that we have today.”
Chris McGuire, a national security and technology expert who served in the U.S. State Department until last summer, agreed.
McGuire said,
If this chip is allowed to go, there are effectively no AI chip export controls anymore,
“The reason we have a big advantage on AI is because we have big advantages in computing power and in chips. If we give that away, best case is, it’s like a tie. Worst case, we fall behind.”
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Giving Nvidia’s Blackwell chip to China would slash US’s AI advantage, experts say, source
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