Memory shortage to hit Nvidia China approvals, US lawmaker says

Demand for the components, long treated as a commodity, has skyrocketed due to the AI data centre boom

Tight memory chip supplies will constrain the number of US export licenses for Nvidia to sell its H200 artificial intelligence (AI) processors to Chinese customers, according to the top Republican on the House China committee, citing terms of a Commerce Department rule issued this week.

In a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Representative John Moolenaar called the shortage of dynamic random-access memory, or Dram – a crucial input for AI accelerators – an “immediate challenge” under the new licensing conditions. Those requirements include exporters certifying that approved China shipments won’t create a shortage in the US market.

“Due to severe supply constraints, chips equipped with HMB3E bound for China represent an opportunity cost when it comes to HMB3E that could otherwise be utilised by American customers,” Moolenaar wrote, using a term that refers to a type of high-bandwidth memory.

An Nvidia spokesperson said the company regularly manages its “supply chain and can serve all approved H200 orders without impacting other products or customers”. The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Under the rules, which Moolenaar largely praised, companies must verify that their China sales won’t cause delays for US AI chip buyers or divert foundry capacity that could be used to fill US orders. The letter notes that the provisions are similar to Gain AI legislation that Moolenaar backed last year but that Nvidia and the White House successfully lobbied to remove from a must-pass defence bill.

Built from stacked Dram, the high-bandwidth memory vital to AI accelerators is made by three main companies: Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology, all of which have warned in recent months of limited supply. Demand for the components, long treated as a commodity, has skyrocketed due to the AI data centre boom.

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At the CES conference earlier this month, Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang acknowledged the memory shortage while insisting that his company is insulated as the sole buyer for the latest generation of memory, HBM4, which is used in its upcoming line of Vera Rubin-design processors.

The letter says that Nvidia uses a special kind of memory made from stacked Dram chips called HBM3 in its H200 and its Blackwell GB300 systems, the most advanced product available to US customers until the Rubin chips begin shipping to customers later this year. Moolenaar asked Lutnick to brief the panel by Jan 25, requesting details on how the availability of memory chips will affect license approvals.

During a hearing on Wednesday, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, whose panel has jurisdiction over export control programs, thanked the Trump administration for the rule’s safeguards. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, another sponsor of last year’s Gain AI effort, also lauded the new regulation, saying that if implemented “in good faith, it will not approve a single license for Nvidia to sell H200s to China”. BLOOMBERG

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