British AI chip darling Graphcore pulls out of China as Nvidia rival becomes latest casualty of US export curbs

The British graphics processing unit maker Graphcore said all of its top-line products have fallen under Washington’s new export rules this month

The company was seen as a potential rival to Nvidia, which has poured resources into customising chips for China that fall outside evolving US restrictions

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Graphcore is cutting most of its China staff after fresh US chip export restrictions forced the company to end sales in the country. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 3:00pm, 24 Nov 2023

British semiconductor firm Graphcore is slashing staff in China and will no longer sell products in the country, citing Washington’s latest export restrictions on sales of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips as the last straw in the market for the struggling company once regarded as a potential rival to industry leader Nvidia.

The tightened regulations, announced in October, took effect this month and are aimed at restricting China’s access to high-end semiconductor technology with US inputs, focusing on data-centre chips used to train AI.

“The recently updated US export controls mean that Graphcore – in common with other AI hardware manufacturers – is no longer able to sell [intelligence processing unit (IPU)] systems in China,” a company spokesman said in a statement to the Post.

“Regrettably, this means we will be significantly scaling back business operations in China,” he added, noting that all of the company’s top-line products had fallen under the new regulations.

The spokesman did not elaborate on the number of staff that would be let go in China, where it set up its Beijing headquarters in 2019.