Nvidia preparing Groq chips that can be sold in Chinese market, sources say

Nvidia preparing Groq chips that can be sold in Chinese market, sources say

By https://www.facebook.com/CNBC
Publication Date: 2026-03-18 00:37:00

Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., speaks during a news conference at the Nvidia GTC conference in San Jose, California, US, on Tuesday, March 17, 2026.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Nvidia is preparing a version of its Groq artificial-intelligence chips that ‌can be sold to the Chinese market, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.

Nvidia licensed technology from Groq, an AI chip startup, late last year in a $17 ​billion deal and showed a new lineup of products based around ​its chips at its annual developer conference in San Jose, California, ⁠this week.

The move to develop a version of the chips for the ​Chinese market comes as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that the company has ​restarted production of its H200 chips, the predecessor to its current flagship chip, after obtaining export licenses from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and purchase orders from Chinese customers.

Nvidia plans ​to tap Groq’s chips for what is known as inference, where AI ​systems answer questions, write code or carry out tasks for users. In the products Nvidia ‌showed ⁠this week, the company plans to use its forthcoming Vera Rubin chips, which cannot be sold in China, in combination with the Groq chips.

While Nvidia dominates the market for training AI systems, it faces much more competition in ​the inference market. Several ​major Chinese ⁠firms, including AI heavyweights such as Baidu, already produce…