Biden's national security NVIDIA and AMD AI chip export ban tanks their stock prices and may affect EV self-driving R&D

NVIDIA is facing a potential US$400 million revenue loss as the US banned exports of its advanced AI chips to China  and Russia in one fell swoop. AMD also advised that the White House forbade it to sell the Instinct MI250 accelerator there, but its stock price is faring a bit better than NVIDIA's which tanked more than 8% on market open over the AI chip ban news.

Famed Taiwanese supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who often has credible scoops on Apple's production plans, came out with a different take, however. According to him, China may now rush to buy any and all chips from NVIDIA, AMD, and other processing design juggernauts it can get its hands on to preempt an eventual expansion of the chip export ban list, boosting their revenue in the short run. Ultimately, however, he expects the move to be a net positive for the US, as China's leadership in the AI patent realm was making it hard to catch up with.

The loss of the 80-billion transistor design of the new H100 AI processor from NVIDIA would be particularly hard to swallow. Made on TSMC's latest 4nm production node, this state-of-the-art AI chip consumes the massive 700W of power and would have been a staple in many a Chinese server farm that does AI processing.

The US ban on AI chip exports from NVIDIA and AMD could indirectly affect China's blossoming electric car industry, too. Local EV makers like NIO are on record boasting autonomous driving R&D centers and technology relying precisely on NVIDIA or AMD chips.

NVIDIA said that it is working with its Chinese customers on replacing their current or future orders with products that aren't subject to the new licensing requirements, but it remains to be seen what licensing exemptions it would get from the US government, if any.

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