On August 12, the White House confirmed that NVIDIA and AMD had reached a highly controversial and unprecedented special agreement with the U.S. government: the revenue of the two companies selling specific chips in the China market must be turned over to the U.S. government on a pro-rata basis, at a rate of 15% of sales, in exchange for export licenses.For the first time, the move directly links a company's sales revenue in specific markets to national export control licenses, marking a new and more fiscal stage in the United States 'technology control policy.White House spokeswoman Carolyn Levitt said the mechanism currently only targets these two companies, but may be expanded to more American technology companies in the future.The U.S. Department of Commerce is studying its legal basis and specific implementation rules, and is expected to further publicly explain it.

Sources said the agreement involves Nvidia's H20 artificial intelligence chips customized for the China market and AMD's MI308 chips.These two products were originally the product of the United States 'export restrictions on China, especially the H20 chip (its performance is significantly lower than that of Nvidia's main product in the international market, the H100 GPU, and it was only designed to circumvent the previous ban on high-performance computing exports).However, in April this year, the United States further tightened export rules on the grounds of "national security" and included H20 in the export ban. This decision had hindered Nvidia's expected quarterly sales of US$8 billion.In July, during his visit to China, Nvidia CEO Huang Renxun revealed that the U.S. government had agreed to resume exports of H20 chips to China, provided that this revenue payment agreement was signed.

The background of this agreement is the intensification of Sino-US scientific and technological competition and the continued tightening of U.S. exports of advanced computing chips.Since 2022, the United States has updated the Export Administration Regulations many times to restrict the export of high-end GPUs used in artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and data centers to China.Although the H20 and MI308 have been designed to downgrade performance to circumvent the ban, U.S. regulators are clearly not satisfied with a form of technical downgrade and have introduced direct financial gains.This model of exchanging revenue share in exchange for export licenses is the first time in the history of U.S. industrial policy.

From a legal and policy perspective, this approach may cause widespread controversy.The U.S. government imposes conditions on companies on the grounds of national security, which itself has certain basis in the Export Administration Act. However, requiring companies to surrender part of their sales revenue is a cross-border measure and may face judicial challenges.Policy analysts point out that this is not only a intersection of trade and security policies, but is also likely to be seen by other countries as a "quasi-tax" behavior, triggering a World Trade Organization dispute.At the same time, domestic companies may also worry that such precedents will extend to other export-sensitive industries, such as semiconductor manufacturing equipment, core components of quantum computing and even biotechnology.

From a market perspective, this agreement has a direct impact on Nvidia and AMD's China operations.Although a 15% revenue share would compress profit margins, this compromise would preserve some market share for companies compared to a complete ban on exports.

According to calculations by several investment banks, China contributes nearly a quarter of its revenue share in Nvidia's data center and AI chip business, especially in high-growth areas such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence training and reasoning, and autonomous driving. China's market demand is stable and large.Nvidia's customer base in China not only includes large Internet companies and cloud computing service providers, but also covers many cutting-edge application scenarios such as financial technology, autonomous driving, and scientific research institutions.This means that once the China market is completely lost, Nvidia's scale effect and technology iteration speed in the global GPU field will be affected.

Although AMD's revenue share in the China market is lower than that of Nvidia, it still has an important layout in the fields of high-performance computing, data center GPUs and some AI accelerators.According to TrendForce, a market research firm, China is AMD's second-largest data center GPU market in the world, second only to the United States, especially in the procurement of large Internet companies, cloud computing vendors and scientific research institutions, AMD's MI series acceleration chips have gained a certain market share.The MI308, an AMD product specifically designed for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, was originally seen as a key competitive model for Nvidia's high-end GPUs.If the China market is completely lost, AMD will not only lose an important source of revenue, but will also bear greater pressure on large-scale product production and R & D investment.

However, the deep impact of the agreement is that it may change the strategic decisions of multinational technology companies.If the U.S. government promotes this model to more companies in the future, multinational companies may have to assess the cost of "revenue sharing" in advance when designing products, layout supply chains and developing markets.This will not only affect the price strategy and competitiveness of American companies in China, but may also prompt China to accelerate the process of localization and substitution and reduce its dependence on American products.Once China makes a breakthrough in the field of AI chips, the competitive advantage of American companies in the global market may be more permanently weakened.

In terms of market reaction, the outside world is generally concerned about the potential impact of this policy on the global chip supply chain.As the core of the high-tech industrial chain, chips are the core of the high-tech industrial chain, and any export restrictions or additional conditions will trigger the restructuring of the supply chain.Industry analysts believe that on the one hand, the United States 'move will strengthen its efforts to curb China's technological development, and on the other hand, it will also increase uncertainty in the international market.As a result, some European and Asian chip makers may accelerate cooperation with China to fill market gaps that may be left by American companies.At the same time, it is a rare practice for the United States to impose "export access fees" on its own companies, which may weaken the United States 'image as a model of a free market economy.