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US-China tech war
TechTech War

Tech war: new US semiconductor restrictions spark panic across China’s consumer market for Nvidia’s sought-after RTX 4090 graphics card

  • The panic has been fuelled by the actions of Nvidia and major partners on the mainland to remove stock of the graphics card from their online stores
  • At some third-party online stores, the graphics card now costs between US$5,469 and US$6,836, nearly triple that of Nvidia’s recommended retail price

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The sudden scarcity of Nvidia Corp’s GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card in the mainland’s consumer market shows the far-reaching impact of Washington’s latest semiconductor export restrictions. Photo: Handout
Ann Caoin Shanghai
The United States’ latest restrictions on the export of advanced semiconductors to China has sparked panic among mainland consumers for Nvidia Corp’s in-demand GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, a top-shelf device used by video gamers and graphics designers across the country to crank up computing performance.
The panic has been fuelled by the decision of Nvidia, the world’s most valuable semiconductor company, to remove its inventory of RTX 4090 graphics cards from its official store on Chinese shopping platform JD.com as of Thursday.
Several of Nvidia’s major hardware partners on the mainland – including AsusTek Computer, Micro-Star International (MSI) and Shenzhen-based Colorful Technology – have also pulled out stock of RTX 4090 from these firms’ respective online stores on Taobao or JD.com, which added to consumer anxiety over the local availability of the graphics card. Taobao is a unit of South China Morning Post owner Alibaba Group Holding.
The RTX 4090’s retail price surged up to 15,000 yuan (US$2,050) the day after the US Commerce Department announced the latest tech export controls on Tuesday, according to merchants at Shanghai’s sprawling electronics market.
An illustration of Nvidia Corp’s artificial intelligence-powered GeForce RTX graphics processing unit that is at the heart of the US company’s highly in-demand RTX 4090 graphics card. Photo: Handout
An illustration of Nvidia Corp’s artificial intelligence-powered GeForce RTX graphics processing unit that is at the heart of the US company’s highly in-demand RTX 4090 graphics card. Photo: Handout

Nvidia did not reply to a request for comment on Thursday.

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