US chip giant Nvidia faces increasing mistrust in China over its H20 chips, after the company secured a licence from Washington to export the tailor-made processors by agreeing to pay 15 per cent of its revenues to the US government.
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On Sunday, a Chinese state media outlet labelled Nvidia’s H20 chip as unsafe and urged Chinese buyers to boycott the artificial intelligence processors designed for the Chinese market.
Despite Nvidia’s repeated denials of “back-door” vulnerabilities, Yuyuan Tantian, associated with state broadcaster China Central Television, said the H20 chip could not be trusted because of the US government’s alleged efforts to embed “back doors” in the chips.
“When a chip is neither environmentally friendly nor advanced or safe, as consumers, we certainly have the option not to buy it,” the outlet said in a commentary.
It suggested that the H20 chip could be remotely controlled through hardware and software exploits, citing Washington’s attempts in 1992 to implement surveillance via chip back doors and a recent bill proposed in May requiring US chipmakers to incorporate tracking features.
Nvidia’s chief security officer David Reber Jnr published a blog post last week titled: “There are no back doors in Nvidia chips. No kill switches. No spyware.”
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