Nvidia's Hopper GPUs are now dead to the Chinese market after export controls that made the company take a 'multibillion-dollar write-off'

There was more than the usual swell of anticipation for Nvidia's latest earnings call, primarily because the last quarter has been tumultuous in the wake of US tariffs and trade restrictions. On this front, and despite the fact that the AI chip giant still seems to be doing phenomenally well, Nvidia has itted export controls have fully killed off its Hopper generation GPUs in China.

During the company's recent Q1 earnings call, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang explained: "The H20 export ban ended our Hopper Data Center business in China. We cannot reduce Hopper further to comply. As a result, we are taking a multibillion-dollar write-off on inventory that cannot be sold or repurposed. We are exploring limited ways to compete, but Hopper is no longer an option."

Hopper is the company's previous-gen GPU/AI accelerator architecture. While its previous delays, Hopper chips still line many server racks and they were the primary Nvidia export to China.

The past couple of years have seen the same scene play out over and over again: The US restricts what Nvidia can export to China, Nvidia starts exporting a slightly less powerful Hopper chip to China, then the US restricts it further so that less powerful Hopper chip is restricted, too. Rinse and repeat.

No longer, though, according to Nvidia. Now, there is seemingly no less powerful chip that Nvidia can comfortably make and export to the country. Nvidia Hopper is dead in China.

Nvidia CFO Colette Kress says: "our outlook reflects a loss in H20 revenue of approximately $8 billion for the second quarter." H20 is the Hopper chip that Nvidia was previously exporting to China, and $8 billion revenue loss for Q2 is a lot more than the company lost for Q1.

Nvidia had previously said that it could lose $5.5 billion in Q1 because of export restrictions, but it looks like that amount turned out to be $2.5 billion in the end: "We recognized $4.6 billion H20 in Q1. We were unable to ship $2.5 billion, so the total for Q1 should have been $7 billion."

Despite praising President Trump's "bold vision", the company doesn't seem to agree with his trade restriction strategy in this case. Huang says: "The question is not whether China will have AI, it already does. The question is whether one of the world's largest AI markets will run on American platforms. Shielding Chinese chipmakers from U.S. competition only strengthens them abroad and weakens America's position."

We've heard Huang say similar before, and it's certainly an argument to take seriously. At the same time, though, we can hardly expect the CEO of a chip company to the banning of its exports to one of its biggest markets.

The China export restrictions were certainly the main talking point in the earnings call, other than the usual "AI factory" stuff and a sliver of gaming talk. On that front, Nvidia claims a "record $3.8 billion" gaming revenue, but the wow-factor shrivels a little when we that Nvidia's pushed out a bunch of its new GPUs over a very short period, so we can expect an inflated number there. Nvidia all but its this when it calls Blackwell its "fastest ramp ever"—that's "fastest", not "biggest".

Anyway, trade talk aside, Nvidia seems to be doing pretty well in the wake of this news. I'm sure the multi-billion company will survive Hopper waving farewell to China.