US chip export ban will hurt Chinese AI startups, not tech giants

Chinese tech giants bought NVIDIA AI chips long before the US imposed export restrictions on these products.

Here's What We Know

According to Baidu CEO Robin Li, the company has purchased enough AI chips to train the Ernie bot in the next year or two. Less powerful processors are needed to generate leads, he said, and there are enough in stock as well. At the same time, US restrictions will inevitably slow AI development in China in the long term.

Other Chinese IT companies such as Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba have also invested billions of dollars in pre-purchases of NVIDIA chips. This will allow them to do without imports from the US for a while.

However, such large investments are beyond the reach of most AI startups. They will have to use simpler chips or wait for a takeover or merger with a larger player.

Baidu's CEO believes that the industry will soon enter a consolidation stage due to the lack of resources and high competition.

Source: TechCrunch