First Nvidia, now AMD: Trump trade turmoil threatens $800M in China chip sales
- Reference: 1744830861
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/04/16/amd_instinct_mi308_china/
- Source link:
AMD revealed Wednesday it expects to book a charge of $800 million — about 16 percent of the House of Zen's [1]Instinct revenues for fiscal 2024 — for inventory in shipments of its Instinct MI308 AI accelerators to China and other countries of concern, now blocked by newly implemented export controls.
As with Nvidia, Uncle Sam could end up overriding these rules on a case by case basis, and granting export licenses for MI308 orders into China that it approves of. However, as AMD points out in a [2]filing with the US securities watchdog, the SEC, while it plans to apply for these licenses, "there is no assurance that licenses will be granted."
[3]
Until that happens, AMD is now stuck with a warehouse full of knee-capped GPUs as it waits to find out whether the Trump administration will green light its sales.
[4]
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While it pales in comparison to the $5.5 billion in revenues Nvidia is [6]likely out as a result of the licensing requirements impacting its own H20 processors, it offers a glimpse into just how big AMD's Instinct business has grown since the debut of the MI300X in late 2023.
While AMD is no stranger to GPUs, it's only recently that the Ryzen biz has pivoted from hardcore HPC parts, such as the Instinct MI250-series used in the United States' first exascale supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to parts competitive with Nvidia for lower-precision AI applications.
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When it launched, the MI300X [8]boasted up to 32 percent higher performance in certain AI workloads compared to Nvidia's then-flagship the H100, along with more than double the memory and significantly greater bandwidth.
As we reported at the time, AMD had [9]aimed to produce a version of that top-end processor that was compliant with America's restrictions on powerful US-designed silicon going into China – a variant we now know as the MI308 series – but beyond that, we don't know much about it.
Those export restrictions, imposed in late 2023, forced AMD to strip down the MI308's floating-point performance and interconnect bandwidth compared to the MI300X — likely putting the China-bound version in the same ballpark as [10]Nvidia's H20 .
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We asked AMD for more information on the chip and the export controls limiting its sale outside the US. The outfit declined to comment beyond what's in its 8-K SEC filing.
[12]AMD says it'll jump through Uncle Sam's hoops to sell AI chips to China
[13]Trump derails Chinese H20 GPU sales, forcing Nvidia to eat $5.5B this quarter
[14]Nvidia joins made-in-America party, hopes to flog $500B in homegrown AI supers by 2029
[15]ASML hits targets but orders sag as Trump trolls markets
While AMD and Nvidia's ability to do business in China will be impaired for the foreseeable future, they may be able to rework their existing designs to limbo dance under the Commerce Department's latest performance limits on China-bound silicon.
It's also possible we'll see AMD reimagine the MI308 as a cut-rate inference part for nations where it's still legal, allowing them to recoup some of their investment. Nvidia did something similar with the A800. Initially designed to comply with interconnect bandwidth limits on GPUs sold in China, the part was [16]reborn as a high-end workstation chip for machine-learning-heavy applications. ®
Get our [17]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/05/amd_q4_fy2024/
[2] https://ir.amd.com/financial-information/sec-filings/content/0000002488-25-000039/amd-20250415.htm
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/hpc&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aAAoauvH73AXWV_L7pVPTAAAAQc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/hpc&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aAAoauvH73AXWV_L7pVPTAAAAQc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/hpc&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aAAoauvH73AXWV_L7pVPTAAAAQc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/16/trump_responds_to_nvidias_us/?td=rt-3a
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/hpc&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aAAoauvH73AXWV_L7pVPTAAAAQc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/06/amd_mi300_gpu/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/03/amd_chips_china_export/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/27/nvidia_china_h20_accelerator/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/hpc&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aAAoauvH73AXWV_L7pVPTAAAAQc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/03/amd_chips_china_export/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/16/trump_responds_to_nvidias_us/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/15/nvidia_made_in_america/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/16/asml_q1_25/
[16] https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/a800/
[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: How long will the appeasement of Trump and his supporters continue?
What the world needs is an "America Last" program
AFAICS it's already getting it, organised (pauses --- possibly not best word) by Trump himself.
Reports of shipments into the US peaked in Q1 suggesting non-US vendors and their importers had anticipated tariffs? How come the likes of AMD & Nvidia didn't, even even park them in warehouses in Canada if not further afield?
Whatever, it's a peculiar way to encouraging manufacturing in the US.
The EU could play that game as well
ASML sells all that nice expensive litho to the new US factories... cashes the cheque then waits a little.
Just before they golive with the new US factory, due to EU National Security reasons, ASML can't provide any ongoing support to the litho.
As we know, that would make the factories dead ducks as without the ongoing support that only ASML can provide, the systems go out of spec and yields crash.
A nice FU to Uncle Donald.
In relation to US product boycotts, the only thing in my life (and that of my wife) that is US branded is Coke-Cola but I am trying to give up the addiction.
All my computers I buy are always "A grade" 2nd hand (and would be made in china anyways), we have never had any subs like netflix, disney+ etc, don't in fact watch any TV, don't do movies, never had/buy amazon, LInux is the only OS we run, use startpage/duckduck/startmail, use dumb Chinese made mobile phones, don't have shit like facebook, twitter etc.
We do have Qobuz (french) as a music streaming service and buy local for food and general consumables as well.
We are about as far away from a modern consumer as you can get.....if I could just give up Coke......
Bluck
How long will the appeasement of Trump and his supporters continue?
I have written several times about "America First" is another way of saying "Everyone else last". What the world needs is an "America Last" program - not buying anything from the USA or American brands unless there is absolutely no alternative.
Boeing, for example, can exist solely in the USA. Every other country can buy Airbus, Embraer, or even the up and coming Comac. It will take time to transition away from Boeing for some airlines, but the sooner they start the better.
Nike? Forget it. McDonald's? Forget it. Burger King? Forget it. KFC, Five Guys, Papa John's, ... Who needs them?
Then there's Gap, Nike.
This is not hyperbole. America started this trade war, which is not actually a trade war but a war of world domination. Just not buying American is a very good option for the rest of the world. It's not enough for the USA to remove the tariffs now. It has shown its true intentions, and needs to be confronted.