NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 GPU has seen a huge price surge in China, pertaining to the recently imposed US restrictions, which have disrupted its supply.
Biden Government's New Policy Restricts Supply Of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090 GPU In China, Impending Shortages Leads To Doubling In Price Over-Night
The Biden government has decided to impose harsher sanctions on China, with the aim of reducing the influence of Chinese AI markets on the global landscape. The change in policy indicates that the US intends to thwart AI developments in China, and the most effective way they see is by blocking the supply of AI chips (especially GPUs) to the country. Now you might wonder how will this have an effect on consumer GPUs since they are often seen as a viable alternative to core AI products. Well, it looks like the first results of the ban are in and almost all Chinese retailers have increased prices of the flagship GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs.
Through the "ECCN 3A090 and 4A090" documents released by the US, any GPU/chip exceeding 600 GB/s memory bandwidth barrier, or 4800 TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second), will be restricted to export to China. This includes NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090, which doesn't seem like an intentional move, but the new trade policy does adversely affect the supply. The new decision has already seen impacts on the GPU market since the card has doubled in price.
Across major Chinese retail platforms, NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090 is being sold at around 26,000 RMB / USD $3550, which is around a 100% price bump compared to the official MSRP of 12999 RMB / USD $1777. Inventory levels might come to an all-time low, given that the US trade policies come into implementation. However, since NVIDIA means business every time, we could see a cut-down of the GeForce RTX 4090 variant entering the market as well, as a workaround to the new decision.
Following are the countries that are affected by the import ban:
Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Burma, Cambodia, Central African Republic, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Egypt, Eritrea, Georgia, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Macau, Moldova, Mongolia, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Sudan, Republic of Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zimbabwe
Moreover, with the GeForce RTX 4090 reaching tremendous prices, NVIDIA can potentially benefit from it through its mid-to-high tier offerings such as the RTX 4070 Ti and the RTX 4080. Consumers who were looking for flagship Ada SKU might be forced to get other alternatives from Team Green, hence we could see a "moderate" price increase across the complete lineup as well.
News Source: Videocardz
About the author: Muhammad Zuhair is a hardware and technology reporter for Wccftech, specializing in the semiconductor industry and the complex interplay between technology, manufacturing, and geopolitics. His coverage focuses on the corporate strategies and technological roadmaps of industry giants like TSMC, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Intel. Zuhair's expertise lies in deconstructing complex topics such as fabrication nodes (e.g., 2nm process), the economic impact of policies like the CHIPS Act, and the strategic development of AI infrastructure from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
