Facing sweeping export bans, Nvidia is aggressively building domestic capacity and alternate chip lines to mitigate the loss of the Chinese market.
The company announced a massive investment — partnered with TSMC and supported by U.S. policy — to boost chip manufacturing stateside. Nvidia will also open new research facilities, including a Shanghai R&D hub focused on verification and optimization, while keeping core design offshore for IP protection.
In parallel, Nvidia is offering scaled-back devices like the L20 GPU as legal workarounds into China—but these face tough competition from Huawei’s Ascend line and at-home cluster computing initiatives.
Huang describes the situation as painful but necessary: “Export curbs are a failure—but we must adapt.” The company aims to offset revenue losses from H20 restrictions with domestic resilience and diversification.
However, the long-term question remains: is resiliency enough if China continues with a separate AI stack and ecosystem not reliant on American chips?
