(JW Insights) Aug 25 -- US chip titan Nvidia Corp. acknowledged that the US may impose stronger restrictions on the sale of chips to China and warned that such a move will hurt American companies in the long term, reiterating a broadly held view among top chipmakers, reported Bloomberg on August 24.

Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress, speaking on a conference call with analysts on August 23, argued that existing curbs on the sale of AI chips and high-end components were already having the desired effect. The company is currently prohibited from offering its high-end graphics processing unit, or GPU, in the country — though it sells a less powerful version of the chip in China.

“Over the long term, restrictions prohibiting the sale of our data center GPUs to China, if implemented, will result in a permanent loss of an opportunity for the US industry to compete and lead in one of the world’s largest markets,” Kress said following Nvidia’s earnings announcement. The finance chief said she was addressing reports on the potential for increased regulations “on our exports to China.”

In the more immediate term, though, stricter rules wouldn’t take a heavy toll on Nvidia’s finances, she said.

“Given the strength of demand for our products worldwide, we do not anticipate that additional export restrictions on our data center GPUs, if adopted, would have an immediate material impact to our financial results,” Kress said.

Kress’s boss, Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang, recently joined counterparts from Intel Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. in a visit to Washington to argue for a pause in escalations of export controls.

Bloomberg has reported that further restrictions are being considered that would limit Nvidia’s ability to ship to China — the biggest market for semiconductors.

Nvidia, benefiting from an industrywide race toward artificial intelligence computing, delivered a third-straight sales forecast that surpassed Wall Street estimates on August 23. That fueled a 6% share rally in late trading. The company gets about two-thirds of its sales from outside the US, though it doesn’t disclose revenue in China, according to the Bloomberg report.

(Gao J)