ByteDance, Alibaba to be allowed by China’s govt. to buy new Nvidia chips

ByteDance, Alibaba, and other Chinese companies may get the government’s okay to buy Nvidia’s new RTX PRO 5500 ​chips , The Information reported, citing unnamed sources.

According to the report, China’s ‌Ministry of Industry and ‌Information ⁠Technology asked companies to report their purchase plans for the chip and said the government is likely to grant its approval for the same.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has encouraged the U.S. administration to allow his company’s chips to be sold in China, citing the need to compete in the Asian market as well. At the same time, the Chinese government was encouraging its tech giants to explore using homegrown alternatives instead, to prevent their dependence on U.S. technology that could be subject to sudden export restrictions.

On the other hand, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and other technologists, have called for chip restrictions against China.