(Reuters) – Global chip stocks slumped on Wednesday after Washington curbed exports of an AI chip Nvidia had tailored for China, further cutting off the crucial growth market for semiconductors in a move that will cost the AI pioneer $5.5 billion in charges.
Nvidia said the charges it would incur is a result of U.S. restricting the export of its H20 AI chip to China, along with AMD’s MI308 and their equivalents.
The export curbs to China have in recent years squeezed U.S. companies, but the country remains a crucial revenue source with Nvidia drawing more than 13% of its sales, or some $17 billion, from China in its last fiscal year.
Meanwhile, ASML, the world’s biggest supplier of computer chip-making equipment, cautioned that tariffs were adding to the uncertainty for its outlook for 2025 and 2026, sending its shares down over 4%.
“We are not surprised that there are limits to H20…but the constraint there is supply, so a more sudden reduction in H20 – and given the inventory writedown, a higher revenue expectation going forward for H20 – will likely be disruptive to revenue and earnings,” Morgan Stanley analysts said.
Shares of Nvidia were down 5%, AMD dropped over 6%, while Micron Technology, Broadcom and Intel fell between 2% to 4% in premarket trading.
Stacy Rasgon, a Bernstein analyst, said banning the H20 Chip ‘makes no sense’ as it would hand over the Chinese AI market to rivals Huawei.
U.S. officials have been aiming to prevent the sale of critical chip to China in an effort to maintain a competitive edge in the AI race.
“The impact of a full H20 wipeout is probably (about)30 cents or so at current levels (not enormous in the grand scheme of things),” Rasgon said.
(Reporting by Joel Jose and Siddarth S in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
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