Nvidia revealed it was caught off guard by a new US ban on the sale of AI chips to China, with the ban coming sooner than expected.

Nvidia made the announcement in an SEC filing:

On October 23, 2023, the United States Government informed NVIDIA Corporation, or the Company, that the licensing requirements of the
interim final rule entitled “Implementation of Additional Export Controls: Certain Advanced Computing Items; Supercomputer and Semiconductor
End Use; Updates and Corrections”, dated October 18, 2023, applicable to products having a “total processing performance” of 4800 or more
and designed or marketed for datacenters, is effective immediately, impacting shipments of the Company’s A100, A800, H100, H800, and L40S
products. These licensing requirements were originally to be effective after a 30-day period, as first described in the Company’s Current Report
on Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on October 17, 2023. Given the strength of demand for the Company’s
products worldwide, the Company does not anticipate that the accelerated timing of the licensing requirements will have a near-term meaningful
impact on its financial results.

As Ars Technica points out, Nvidia had developed a line of chips to comply with US export restrictions when they were announced in September 2022. Unfortunately for the company, the new restrictions announced this week eliminate the export of those new chips as well.

Huawei has already been working to replace Nvidia in the Chinese market. These latest restrictions are sure to add momentum to that company’s efforts.