China’s internet giants are rushing to acquire high-performance Nvidia chips vital for building generative artificial intelligence systems, making orders worth US$5 billion ($7.65 billion), the Financial Times reported.
Baidu, TikTok-owner ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba have made orders worth US$1 billion to acquire about 100,000 A800 processors from the US chipmaker to be delivered this year, the FT reported, citing multiple people familiar with the matter.
The Chinese groups had also purchased a further US$4 billion worth of graphics processing units to be delivered in 2024, according to the report.
Nvidia offers the A800 processor in China to meet export control rules after US officials asked the company late last year to stop exporting its two top computing chips to the country for AI-related work.
The FT report comes as US President Joe Biden signed an executive order that would narrowly prohibit certain US investments in sensitive technology in China and require government notification of funding in other tech sectors.
Nvidia, Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.