Sounding off: It's long been said that China's chip industry is far behind the US – by several years, even up to a decade. Jensen Haung, on the other hand, says the rival nation is merely "nanoseconds behind" the United States in this area. The Nvidia boss also repeated his plea for Washington to allow American tech firms to compete in China as doing so would benefit both countries.
Speaking on the BG2 podcast, Huang said that the US and China have a competitive relationship. He warned that America was up against a "formidable, innovative, hungry, fast-moving, underregulated" competitor, citing its infamous 9-9-6 culture: working 9am to 9pm, six days per week. Former Google boss Eric Schmidt has just warned that this culture, contrasted against the US' work-from-home policies, means American firms cannot compete with their rivals from the Asian nation.
Huang then claimed that rather than being a year or two behind the US in the areas of chip development and manufacturing, China is "nanoseconds behind us, and so we've got to go compete."
The Nvidia boss pointed out that China has said it wants an open market while attracting foreign investment and having overseas companies compete in the country. "They [China] would also like to come out of China and participate around the world," he added.
Speaking about the US chip market and export restrictions on China, Huang questioned the logic of not allowing "America's best industry" to compete globally, which he said is vital for its survival, economic success, and geopolitical influence.
Many will argue, of course, that Huang only cares about selling more chips and little else. He previously downplayed fears that China could use Nvidia's AI chips for military purposes, claiming the country's armed forces cannot rely on US-made technology.
In August, the US reached a deal with Nvidia that would allow its H20 GPUs to be once again sold in China in exchange for Washington taking a 15% cut of the sales.
China, however, isn't clamoring for H20 chips. Chinese state media previously reported that the H20 GPUs were unsafe, outdated, and bad for the environment – it even accused the chips of having backdoors, kill switches, and spyware. As it looks to lessen reliance on foreign products in favor of domestic versions like those from Huawei, Beijing has reportedly been urging Chinese tech companies to avoid the H20.
Nevertheless, Nvidia is said to be working on an H20 successor with better performance, which could help persuade Chinese buyers to stick with Team Green.
