Market Share Plummeted from 90% to 50%, Counterattacking with Regulation-Evading B20 and R9700

NVIDIA and AMD have pulled out the "China market" card again. Despite US government AI chip export restrictions and additional Trump administration pressure, both companies plan to release new AI GPUs that can be exported to China in July. This is a counterattack after high-performance models like H20 became subject to sanctions -- both companies are precisely targeting Chinese AI demand with "legal" versions with reduced capabilities. May 2025: according to supply chain sources, NVIDIA and AMD plan to supply B20 (Blackwell architecture-based) and Radeon AI PRO R9700 respectively to China from July. Both products are designed as "downgraded models" with reduced compute performance and memory specifications to avoid US export control requirements -- reportedly having sufficient performance to run major Chinese AI models like DeepSeek and Qwen3. The market share context: NVIDIA at peak had approximately 90% of China AI chip market; following H100 export restrictions and then H20 export restrictions, US chip market share in China has fallen to approximately 50%; Chinese domestic alternatives (Huawei Ascend, Cambricon) have gained share but are still considered inferior for frontier AI training. The regulatory arbitrage dynamic: US export controls define permitted chip capabilities through performance thresholds; NVIDIA and AMD engineer chips specifically to fall below the threshold while maximizing performance within those constraints; this is a legal business strategy but one that critics argue undermines the strategic intent of export controls; the controls aim to prevent China from developing frontier AI capabilities, but the downgraded chips still enable substantial AI development.