The chipmaker has reportedly told component suppliers to stop work on the region-specific GPU, suggesting even Jensen Huang sees little point in flogging a dead silicon horse.

The H20 was supposed to be a workaround for US export restrictions, offering cut-down AI performance that kept Washington happy while still letting Nvidia tap into China’s monster market.

That plan went sideways after the Trump administration tightened licensing rules earlier this year, forcing Nvidia to write off $4.5 billion in inventory and chuck an $8 billion revenue opportunity in the bin.

After a temporary truce allowed shipments to resume in exchange for a 15 per cent sales haircut, it now looks like Nvidia has had enough. According to The Information, the company has asked suppliers to halt production work on the H20.

Nvidia pulled in 13 per cent of its total sales from China last fiscal year, worth about $17 billion. It once boasted that its annual revenue opportunity in China was north of $50 billion, but that figure now looks like a fever dream.

Part of the reason is that Beijing isn’t playing nice either. The Chinese politburo, increasingly spooked by talk of tech dependency and backdoor spyware, has started leaning on domestic firms to ditch Nvidia. There’s even talk of outright bans on H20 purchases, with officials pushing for home-grown alternatives no matter how wobbly they are.

In the meantime, Nvidia is prepping a B30 chip to replace the doomed H20. But whether it can win back the world’s second-largest economy after this mess is anyone’s guess.