Nvidia bypasses US restrictions, sells £9bn worth of chips to China

US chipmaker Nvidia is set to sell more than £9bn worth of chips in China this year, despite ongoing restrictions from Washington.

The tech giant is expected to deliver more than a million of its new graphics processing chips to the region by 2024.

That’s almost double what rival Huawei is expected to sell, according to Semi Analysis, a chip consultancy.

Each chip costs between £9,400 and £10,000, suggesting Nvidia is likely to generate more than £9.4 billion in sales.

The strong figures come despite US export controls, which restrict shipments of semiconductor chips to China over security concerns.

Nvidia, which designs chips used in artificial intelligence, has enjoyed a huge surge in value over the past year.

The company, whose chips have fuelled the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence (AI), is now worth more than £2.5bn.

This is more than the entire FTSE 100 is worth (around £2.1tn) and makes it the third most valuable company in the world behind Microsoft and Apple.

The group posted revenues of £20bn in the three months to the end of April this year, up 262 per cent from a year earlier and beating Wall Street estimates.

Chief executive Jensen Huang said demand was “very strong” as he sought to counter fears that the momentum could fade at any moment.

Amazon, Google, Meta (which owns Facebook) and Microsoft have all said they will need to spend more on the chips and data centers needed to train and operate their AI systems in the coming months.