Nvidia plans powerful chip for China, but Beijing is not interested!

China's Internet regulator has ordered technology companies to halt purchases of Nvidia's AI chips and cancel existing orders, the Financial Times reported recently. 

The Cyberspace Administration of China directed firms, including ByteDance and Alibaba, to cancel orders for Nvidia's RTX6000D chip, the U.S. company’s latest chip for the Chinese market. In recent months, Beijing had begun to pressure tech companies to avoid American chips, with state media raising concerns about backdoors and spyware in Nvidia's products. 

Now that pressure seems to have escalated into an outright prohibition, Beijing’s motivations remain unclear. The move could be a sign of confidence in China’s domestic chipmakers’ ability to produce competitive AI chips, or it could be a shrewd tactical move to get access to better-performing U.S. chips. 

Last month, Reuters reported that Nvidia was developing a more powerful AI chip for the Chinese market, dubbed the “B30” or “B30A,” based on the company’s latest Blackwell architecture. According to Reuters, the chip would stay within current U.S. export control thresholds, but would still significantly outperform the RTX6000D and H20, Nvidia's current high-end, China-only offerings. 

But, if the fight over H20 exports is any indication, getting approval for B30A exports would be an uphill battle. The Trump administration had banned H20 sales in April 2025 over concerns about its capabilities, only for the White House to reverse course months later following intensive Nvidia lobbying. That move earned significant pushback, including from inside the president’s own party. 

Late last month, House Select Committee on China Chair John Moolenaar (R-MI) proposed a “rolling technical threshold” in a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The plan, if implemented, would limit chip sales to a “marginal improvement” over China's domestic capabilities — a standard that would likely bar sales of the B30A. 

By cancelling RTX6000D and H20 orders, Beijing could be making clear it won’t settle for “marginal improvements,” or it could be cutting the cord for good.

-- Source: CSET, USA.