Shockwaves in Silicon: Nvidia’s AI Chip Ban in China Escalates the Tech Cold War
Background: Nvidia’s AI Chips “Not Welcome” in China In September 2025, reports emerged that the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) had directed the country’s largest tech companies to halt purchases of Nvidia’s AI chips reuters.com. Specifically, firms like Alibaba and ByteDance were told to cancel orders and stop testing Nvidia’s new RTX Pro 6000D GPUs reuters.com. This model was a China-tailored chip Nvidia unveiled in July after U.S. export rules blocked its most powerful processors. Several Chinese companies had planned to buy tens of thousands of these 6000D chips and were already working with server suppliers to deploy them reuters.com.