BEIJING: Nvidia, a major US graphics card maker, has announced the release of a new chip made specifically for the Chinese market. The company said this will enable Nvidia to continue selling its products to Chinese customers while complying with new US export control rules.

The new A800 graphic processing unit (GPU) is a replacement for the A100 chip, the sale of which to Chinese customers is currently restricted by the US government. The existence of the new product was first reported by Reuters, and later confirmed by California-based Nvidia Santa Clara.

An Nvidia spokesperson said in a statement that the Nvidia A800 GPU, which began production in the third quarter, is another Nvidia A100 GPU alternative product for customers in China. The A800 "meets the explicit test for low export controls established by the US government and cannot be programmed to exceed."

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In an effort to tighten restrictions on China's access to cutting-edge chips, Washington in August forbade Tender from selling the A100 and its more powerful H100 data center GPUs to Chinese customers without permits.

The company's most recent offering demonstrates how Nvidia is striving to strike a balance between its business objectives and Washington's strategic control of China.

About a quarter of Nvidia's gross sales are made in this country. The company previously said it expects the ban to result in a loss of about $400 million in sales in the third quarter.

The South China Morning Post was informed by a Beijing-based chip distributor that it has already started promoting the A800 to Chinese customers as a replacement for the A100, which was released in 2020.

Nvidia has played a key role in providing chips fueling China's progress in artificial intelligence (AI), data analysis and high-performance computing.

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As a result, the US embargo severely hampered China's ability to build sophisticated AI models that are trained on powerful processors from US manufacturers such as Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, as well as GPUs from Nvidia.

The two cutting-edge chips are part of Nvidia's data center business, which saw US$3.8 billion in sales and 61% year-over-year growth in the three months ending June 2022.

According to Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang, China has grown into a "very large market" as the country has become a global AI powerhouse, with nearly one million companies claiming to have AI connections.

Despite export restrictions on its most sophisticated chips, Taiwan-American entrepreneur Huang claimed in a press conference in September that China continues to provide significant growth opportunities.

To curb China's advanced chip manufacturing capabilities, the US Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security implemented a comprehensive set of export controls in October.

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The new rules significantly tighten export limits on state-of-the-art chips above specific technical limits and regulate the export of equipment required to manufacture and manufacture such chips.