Last week, Financial Times reported that China was prohibiting major tech companies from buying AI chips from Nvidia, as the country grows confident in its domestic semiconductor industry.
The report came just a few months after Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang announced that the company was applying for US government approval to resume sales of its H20 chip series in the country.
The H20 chip was developed specifically for the Chinese market after the US imposed an export ban on advanced AI chips to its competitor.
However, earlier this year, President Donald Trump extended the ban to include chips like the H20.
Questioned about the report on CNBC, BYD‘s Executive VP Stella Li has reaffirmed the Chinese automaker’s partnership with Nvidia.
“A lot of our autonomous vehicles are equipped with their chips,” Li said.
According to the Vice President, BYD was neither told to stop buying their chips nor is expecting it to change in the future.
“You can see even with President Trump’s visit, he’s going to visit China now,” the executive mentioned, adding that “China is still very open and the US has also come to the point of wanting to rebuild the relationship with China.”
The outlet asked whether BYD is using Nvidia‘s most advanced AI chips or instead a less powerful, export-compliant version — such as the H20.
They also pressed on what would happen if geopolitical restrictions — from both Washington and Beijinh — cut off access altogether.
Stella Li responded that she doesn’t think “any country will do that because that will automatically kill Nvidia.”
“Nvidia is now is the highest market value company,” she said, adding that they can’t “lose the big market from China.”
If the US decided to restrict chip access even further, BYD would not be concerned, “because everybody has a backup,” according to Li.
“BYD is a long-time player, we’re a technology player. We have a lot of strong, even deeper technology in-house. So we always have a backup,” the executive added.
The executive was questioned whether BYD customers would lose any functionality in areas such as autonomy, infotainment, or safety if Nvidia chips were replaced by a backup.
She responded that “90% of the customers feel like a feature will not change.” However, she also noted that “she is not a top engineer” to provide a definitive answer.
Nvidia said earlier this year that BYD will use the Nvidia Drive Orin high-performance computing platform in its entire range of vehicles beginning from 2026.
