The Cyberspace Administration of China said in a statement on Thursday that the chips had a serious security vulnerability and asked Nvidia staff to explain the risks and provide relevant documents. At issue are location tracking and remote shutdown capabilities of the products, according to the statement.
Nvidia, which hasn’t publicly acknowledged that the H20 chips have such functions, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment outside of regular business hours.
The move marked an abrupt change in tone after an apparent improvement in trade relations between the US and China, coming just days after a Stockholm summit between the two nations’ trade officials. The particular H20 product, which had in April been banned from sale to China by the Trump administration, had only recently been cleared to return to the market by US authorities.
Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said this month they would resume sales of some AI chips in China after securing Washington’s assurances that such shipments would get approved.
US lawmakers slammed the resumption over risks that it would boost Beijing’s military capabilities and expand its ability to compete with the US in AI. Administration officials responded by saying China already had more capable products than the H20 from domestic providers like Huawei Technologies Co.The less-advanced H20 chip was designed to comply with Washington’s earlier trade curbs on China.