(San José) The boss of the American giant Nvidia, which produces electronic chips necessary for the functioning of artificial intelligence (AI), said Tuesday that he did not expect “a disaster scenario” due to Sino-American tensions.
Geopolitical tensions between the two powers continue and the lower house of the American Congress recently voted on a text which could lead to the ban in the United States of the Chinese social network TikTok.
“I have confidence that the countries’ goal is not conflicting,” Jensen Huang responded Tuesday when asked how Sino-US tensions could affect his business.
“The disaster scenario is unlikely. We are not counting on that,” he said, adding that the company could still work to be more “resilient”.
The United States announced in 2023 new restrictions on the export to China of the most efficient electronic chips, in particular those used for the development of AI, in order to prevent their use by Beijing for military purposes.
These restrictions aroused the anger of China, which accused Washington of “technological terrorism”.
For now, Nvidia must ensure that electronic chips intended for the Chinese market comply with American restrictions, and seek to diversify its supply chain, he pointed out.
The founder and boss of the group also mentioned the latest “superchip” called Blackwell, unveiled on Monday, indicating that the latter was made up of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of elements.
“These parts come from all over the world, and a lot of them come from China,” he said, continuing: “That’s the truth, and that’s also the case for the auto industry, and for the automotive industry. defense “.
Unlike most of its rivals, such as Intel, Micron and Texas Instruments, the Nvidia group does not manufacture its own chips.
It uses subcontractors, mainly the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which could constitute a weak point for the company, due to geopolitical tensions between Taiwan and mainland China.
Nvidia’s powerful GPU chips, and its software, are one of the main ingredients of generative AI.
Nvidia also announced on Monday that it was strengthening its collaboration with Chinese automobile manufacturers including the electric champion BYD, even though the United States prohibits it from exporting the most powerful chips to China.