US Curbs On Nvidia Chips To Have Minimal Impact On Korean Chipmakers

Seoul: South Korean chipmakers will likely face only limited impact from the new US restrictions on exports of Nvidia’s H20 artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators to China, experts here said on Wednesday.

Nvidia said it has been notified by the US authorities that the company now requires a license to export its H20 chips to China for the indefinite future, reports Yonhap news agency.

The H20 accelerators were the most advanced AI chip the company could still export to China under the existing US export ban on high-performance AI chips.

SK hynix supplies its eight-layer HBM3E, the fifth-generation high bandwidth memory (HBM), for the H20 chips. Samsung Electronics Co. does not supply HBM for this particular chip.

Experts say the new regulation is unlikely to significantly affect the South Korean semiconductor firms in the short term, as SK hynix is currently focused on its latest 12-layer HBM3E, a key component in high-performance AI chips destined for markets outside China.

Additionally, SK hynix has already finalised its HBM sales contracts for the H20 chips, meaning the new export restrictions will not affect its balance sheet, according to the experts.