(Reuters) - China's internet regulator has ordered top technology firms to halt purchases of Nvidia artificial intelligence chips and cancel existing orders as part of a broader push to cut reliance on U.S. technology, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
Shares of the US company were down 1% in premarket trading.
Successive U.S. administrations have restricted China's access to advanced chips, prompting Beijing to press domestic firms to turn away from American suppliers, hitting industry leaders
like Nvidia.
The move comes days after China accused the company of violating its anti-monopoly law, marking the latest flare-up in the trade war with Washington.
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) directed companies including ByteDance and Alibaba this week to terminate their testing and orders of the RTX Pro 6000D, the report said, citing three people with knowledge of the matter.
The fresh ban is stronger than the earlier guidance from regulators that focused on the H20, the previous version of Nvidia's China-tailored AI chip, the report said.
Nvidia, Alibaba and Bytedance did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Nvidia's RTX6000D, its newest artificial intelligence chip tailored for the Chinese market, has seen only lukewarm demand with some major tech firms opting not to place order, Reuters first reported earlier this week.
Several companies had indicated they would order tens of thousands of the RTX Pro 6000D and had started testing and verification work with Nvidia's server suppliers before telling them to stop the work after receiving the CAC order, the FT reported.
(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh in Barcelona;Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
