The California-based company will require licenses to export its H20 AI chip to China, a move which the US Commerce Department said was designed to safeguard "national and economic security". Nvidia said federal officials had told them the requirement will be in force for the "indefinite future".
But why is the company so pivotal in the race for AI supremacy between the US and China? Nvidia designs advanced chips, or semiconductors, that are used in generative artificial intelligence. Generative AI can produce new content from a user's prompt, like ChatGPT. In recent years, a surge in global demand for AI chips led Nvidia to become one of the world's most valuable companies. In November, Nvidia briefly unseated Apple as the largest company in the world by market capitalisation.
