Aug 20 (Reuters) – Nvidia plans to start shipping small volumes of an AI chip designed for Chinese customers by year-end, The Information reported on Thursday, citing two employees.
Several Chinese customers have already ordered the chip, a version of Nvidia’s language processing unit, which uses technology licensed from Groq and works alongside Nvidia’s graphics processors to speed up AI chatbot responses, the report said.
The chip complies with U.S. export controls, The Information reported, though it remains unclear whether Beijing will approve sales.
Nvidia did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Reuters could not independently verify the report.
While the chip giant dominates the market for training AI systems, it faces much more competition in the inference market. Several major Chinese firms, including AI heavyweights such as Baidu, already produce their own inference chips.
Reuters reported in March that Nvidia was preparing a China-compatible version of AI chips, as it sought to compete in the fast-growing market for AI inference.
(Reporting by Anhata Rooprai in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)
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