A partner at a Chinese semiconductor investment fund has welcomed the U.S. government’s ban of certain advanced chip types to be exported to China, describing the move as “great news” which may stimulate a domestic ecosystem.
Chloe Wang, a partner and vice-president at the Guangzhou-headquartered Yang Cheng Fund, said: “We received the very great news this morning, and I didn’t feel surprised about the U.S. [which] continued to ban the H100 and 800 exports to China,” Wang told CNBC’s East Tech West conference in the Nansha district of Guangzhou, China, on Wednesday.
The U.S. Department of Commerce is set to prevent the sale of some advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China, it announced on Tuesday, over concerns they could be used for military development purposes. This will restrict the export of chipmaker Nvidia‘s A800 and H800 chips, officials said.
Nvidia’s H100 chip, used by AI firms in the U.S., was banned for sale in earlier U.S. government restrictions.
Wang said the fund invests in semiconductor companies, including those in the AI training and autonomous vehicle sectors. One AI chip company Yang Cheng has invested in will launch its initial public offering this year, while a Shanghai-based AI chip firm is valued at more than $3 billion, Wang added, though she didn’t name the firms.
“We believe those kind of upstream chipmakers — they will drive, or they will play the leading role in China, and they will create their own ecosystem,” Wang added. “And maybe we can, not too much rely on the Cuda system,” she said, referencing Nvidia’s AI software.
“I still feel quite confident about the Chinese entrepreneurs as well as the consumer base market,” she added.
A worker holds a circuit board.
Owngarden | Moment | Getty Images
Wang said there are around 1,500 companies in China that are involved in the design of integrated circuits (IC) and a “shortage” of companies in the AI chip training sector, with around 20 start-ups in the space.
China wants to increase its computing power by 50% by 2025, according to a plan by several Chinese ministries announced in October. Doing so is seen as a key way of developing AI, which needs advanced semiconductors to process vast amounts of data.
The U.S. government ban is designed to prevent China’s access to advanced semiconductors “because they could be used for military uses and modernization,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on a call with reporters Tuesday. They’re not intended to hurt Chinese economic growth, U.S. officials added.
The chip, made by China’s SMIC, has sparked concern in Washington and raised questions about how it was possible. There’s also scrutiny on whether the process being used to make these new chips is efficient enough on a large scale to sustain a Huawei comeback.
CNBC’s Kif Leswing and Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.
Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said Thursday that he’s moving out of the “bomb shelter” with Nvidia and into a position of safety, expecting that the chipmaker is positioned to withstand President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs.
“The growth and the demand for GPUs is off the charts,” he told CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report,” referring to Nvidia’s graphics processing units that are powering the artificial intelligence boom. He said investors just need to listen to commentary from OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk.
President Trump announced an expansive and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy in a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The plan established a 10% baseline tariff, though many countries like China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to steeper rates. The announcement sent stocks tumbling on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 5%, headed for its worst day since 2022.
The big reason Nvidia may be better positioned to withstand Trump’s tariff hikes is because semiconductors are on the list of exceptions, which Gerstner called a “wise exception” due to the importance of AI.
Nvidia’s business has exploded since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, and annual revenue has more than doubled in each of the past two fiscal years. After a massive rally, Nvidia’s stock price has dropped by more than 20% this year and was down almost 7% on Thursday.
Gerstner is concerned about the potential of a recession due to the tariffs, but is relatively bullish on Nvidia, and said the “negative impact from tariffs will be much less than in other areas.”
He said it’s key for the U.S. to stay competitive in AI. And while the company’s chips are designed domestically, they’re manufactured in Taiwan “because they can’t be fabricated in the U.S.” Higher tariffs would punish companies like Meta and Microsoft, he said.
“We’re in a global race in AI,” Gerstner said. “We can’t hamper our ability to win that race.”
YouTube on Thursday announced new video creation tools for Shorts, its short-form video feed that competes against TikTok.
The features come at a time when TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is at risk of an effective ban in the U.S. if it’s not sold to an American owner by April 5.
Among the new tools is an updated video editor that allows creators to make precise adjustments and edits, a feature that automatically syncs video cuts to the beat of a song and AI stickers.
The creator tools will become available later this spring, said YouTube, which is owned by Google.
Along with the new features, YouTube last week said it was changing the way view counts are tabulated on Shorts. Under the new guidelines, Shorts views will count the number of times the video is played or replayed with no minimum watch time requirement.
Previously, views were only counted if a video was played for a certain number of seconds. This new tabulation method is similar to how views are counted on TikTok and Meta’s Reels, and will likely inflate view counts.
“We got this feedback from creators that this is what they wanted. It’s a way for them to better understand when their Shorts have been seen,” YouTube Chief Product Officer Johanna Voolich said in a YouTube video. “It’s useful for creators who post across multiple platforms.”
CEO of Meta and Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attend the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th U.S. president in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Via Reuters
Technology stocks plummeted Thursday after President Donald Trump’s new tariff policies sparked widespread market panic.
Apple led the declines among the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group, dropping nearly 9%. The iPhone maker makes its devices in China and other Asian countries. The stock is on pace for its steepest drop since 2020.
Other megacaps also felt the pressure. Meta Platforms and Amazon fell more than 7% each, while Nvidia and Tesla slumped more than 5%. Nvidia builds its new chips in Taiwan and relies on Mexico for assembling its artificial intelligence systems. Microsoft and Alphabet both fell about 2%.
The drop in technology stocks came amid a broader market selloff spurred by fears of a global trade war after Trump unveiled a blanket 10% tariff on all imported goods and a range of higher duties targeting specific countries after the bell Wednesday. He said the new tariffs would be a “declaration of economic independence” for the U.S.
Companies and countries worldwide have already begun responding to the wide-sweeping policy, which included a 34% tariff on China stacked on a previous 20% tax, a 46% duty on Vietnam and a 20% levy on imports from the European Union.
China’s Ministry of Commerce urged the U.S. to “immediately cancel” the unilateral tariff measures and said it would take “resolute counter-measures.”
The tariffs come on the heels of a rough quarter for the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the worst period for the index since 2022. Stocks across the board have come under pressure over concerns of a weakening U.S. economy. The Nasdaq Composite dropped nearly 5% on Thursday, bringing its year-to-date loss to 13%.
Trump applauded some megacap technology companies for investing money into the U.S. during his speech, calling attention to Apple’s plan to spend $500 billion over the next four years.