The U.S.'s efforts to stymie Chinese chip production are not watertight

Customers check out Huawei's Mate 60 Pro phone at a Huawei store in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, Sept 14, 2023. (Credit: CFOTO—Future Publishing via Getty Images)

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are due to have their first tête-à-tête in a year in San Francisco on Wednesday, and chips are likely to be high on the agenda. The U.S.’s current export controls on chip shipments to China are clearly having a big effect but perhaps not quite as big as the White House was hoping.

Tencent president Martin Lau reportedly said in an analyst call today that the tech giant would be forced to look for domestic alternatives to the likes of Nvidia’s H100 and H800 processors to train its AI models. “We will have to figure out ways to make the usage of our AI chips more efficient," he said, according to Reuters. "And we will also try to look for domestic source[s] for these training chips."