Nvidia announced that the US will require the chipmaker to obtain a license for future export to China in order to reduce the risk of them being used by the Chinese military. “We believe this will have no effect on our business operations,” William Li, founder, chairman, and CEO of Nio, said during an earnings call Wednesday via the company’s translator. According to a transcript from StreetAccount. The Nvidia Drive Orin chip has become a critical component of assisted driving technology for Nio and other Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers.
BEIJING – Chinese electric carmaker Nio, like others in the industry, has stated that US restrictions on Nvidia chip sales to China will have no impact on the automaker’s business. Nvidia announced last week that the United States will require the chipmaker to obtain a license for future export to China of certain products in order to reduce the risk of them being used by the Chinese military. “We believe this will have no effect on our business operations,” William Li, founder, chairman, and CEO of Nio, said during an earnings call Wednesday via the company’s translator. According to a transcript from StreetAccount.
“Based on our estimates, our computing power is adequate for our autonomous driving technology development in terms of AI training for the time being,” Li said. “We’ve also been working closely with our partner Nvidia.” The Nvidia Drive Orin chip has become a critical component of assisted driving technology for Nio and other Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers. According to an online Nvidia blog post, Nio’s new ES7 SUV included four such chips, including one that allowed the car to learn from individual driver preferences. The new restrictions in the United States target Nvidia’s A100 and H100 products, which are sold as part of the company’s much larger data center business. The products are artificial intelligence-capable graphics processors.
According to Li, there are many companies in China that have artificial intelligence training chips, and Nio is evaluating opportunities to work with various companies. However, he stated that the US restrictions would have no impact on Nio’s long-term strategy. Last week, automaker Geely stated that the new restrictions would not affect it, as did autonomous driving start-ups WeRide and Pony.ai.
Earlier this week, Chinese financial news site Caixin reported According to He Xiaopeng, chairman of electric car start-up Xpeng, the restrictions will pose challenges for all autonomous driving algorithm training on cloud computing platforms. According to the report, he stated that the company has purchased enough high-tech products to meet demand in the coming years. Caixin referred to He’s post on a personal WeChat account, which is analogous to a private Facebook news feed post.