Suspend imports! Hong Kong emergency declaration. What's the situation? The latest statement from the US chip giant...

On 6 December, the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department of Hong Kong, China announced that in response to the notification by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) of an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in Hedland Province, the Netherlands, the CFS immediately instructed the trade to suspend the import of poultry meat and poultry products (including eggs) from the region to protect public health in Hong Kong. In addition, the center announced on the 5th that due to the outbreak of bird flu in Japan and parts of the United States, the center immediately instructed the trade to suspend the import of poultry meat and poultry products from the relevant areas.

At present, the bird flu epidemic is spreading in many countries. Europe, including Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and other countries have reported bird flu outbreaks; There were 31 outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 subtype in poultry in 9 places in the United States, and 4.349 million poultry were culled. In Asia, WHO reported two confirmed human cases of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in a Cambodian village, the first of which was fatal. Bird flu outbreaks have also been reported in many parts of Japan.

Just now, a big news came from the chip industry. On Dec. 6, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said Huawei is one of Nvidia's "very strong" competitors in the race to produce the "best" artificial intelligence chips. He revealed that Nvidia is working closely with the U.S. government to ensure that new chips for the Chinese market comply with export restrictions.

Hong Kong announces suspension of imports

A CFS spokesman said that according to the Statistics and Statistics Department, in the first nine months of this year, Hong Kong imported about 50 tonnes of refrigerated poultry meat from the Netherlands.

As a major exporter of poultry products in Europe, the Netherlands has about 2,000 poultry egg farms, with a net annual export of more than 6 billion eggs, but since 2021, nearly 100 farms have been infected with bird flu, and the authorities have culled more than 7 million poultry.

Separately, the Centre for Food Safety of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department of Hong Kong, China announced on 5 December that following reports from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) of the highly pathogenic H5 and H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks in some parts of Japan and the United States respectively, the CFS immediately instructed the trade to suspend imports of poultry meat and poultry products (including eggs) from the relevant areas. To protect public health in Hong Kong.

A CFS spokesman said that according to the Statistics and Statistics Department, in the first nine months of this year, Hong Kong, China imported about 1080 tonnes of frozen poultry meat and about 200 million poultry eggs from Japan, and about 2147 tonnes of chilled and frozen poultry meat and about 57.11 million poultry eggs from the United States.

Hong Kong's successive import suspension announcements come as a major bird flu outbreak is spreading across many countries.

On December 5, the French agriculture Ministry announced that the country's first bird flu outbreak of the season had been detected on a farm in Brittany in the northwest of the country, and therefore raised the risk level of bird flu from "medium" to "high".

According to the announcement of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, nature and Food Quality on the 2nd, a bird flu case was found in a chicken farm in the city of Putten in the eastern province of Helderland, and about 110,000 chickens on the farm have been culled in order to prevent the spread of the disease.

According to the official website of the China Animal Health and Epidemiology Center, on December 4 local time, the United States reported 31 poultry H5N1 subtype highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks in Minnesota, Wisconsin, California, North Dakota, Arkansas, Georgia, South Dakota, Iowa, Ohio and other 9 places, and 3,758 poultry died of infection. 4.349 million were culled.

On December 3, according to Japan's Kyodo News agency, Japan's Kagoshima Prefecture released news on the same day that a chicken farm in the city of water in the county confirmed the occurrence of highly pathogenic avian influenza. This is the third bird flu outbreak reported in Japan so far this fall and winter.

Alarmingly, Cambodia has confirmed two human cases of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza, the first of which was fatal.

According to the CCTV news client, WHO was notified by the Ministry of Health of Cambodia on 24 and 25 days that there were two confirmed cases of H5N1 bird flu in a village in Kampot province in southern Cambodia, both of them female. The first patient sought treatment four days after developing symptoms of fever, shortness of breath and cough, tested positive for H5N1, and died while hospitalized.

Chip news

On December 6, according to Thepaper.cn news, Huang Renxun, CEO of US chip company Nvidia Corp, said on December 6 that Huawei is one of Nvidia's "very strong" competitors in the race to produce the "best" artificial intelligence chips. He revealed that Nvidia is working closely with the U.S. government to ensure that new chips for the Chinese market comply with export restrictions.

Huang, who is visiting Singapore, said at a press conference that Huawei, Intel and growing semiconductor startups pose a serious challenge to Nvidia's dominance in the artificial intelligence chip market. "We have a lot of competitors inside and outside of China."

Nvidia's chips have become the hottest commodity in the AI boom because they offer the most efficient way to train large language models. However, the US government has set barriers to Nvidia's chip sales, and in mid-October this year, it further tightened the export of Nvidia chips to China.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin responded at a regular press conference on December 4 that the United States should establish a correct understanding of China, work with China to effectively implement the important consensus reached by the two presidents in San Francisco, stop treating China as a "hypothetical enemy" and correct the wrong behavior of engaging in confrontation between major powers under the guise of competition.

Huang said that the Chinese market accounts for about 20 percent of Nvidia's sales, and the company will continue to "perfectly" comply with trade regulations and provide a new set of products for the Chinese market that comply with the latest U.S. government regulations. He added that Nvidia needs to seek the market's advice, and that process is ongoing.

Nvidia warned in its earnings report in November that it expected sales in China to fall sharply in the fourth quarter following the implementation of new U.S. rules.

During his visit to Singapore, Huang met with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. On December 4, Singapore released its National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2.0, which proposes to expand the country's AI workforce to 15,000 people. Huang said the trip will be an in-depth discussion with Lee about how Nvidia can help, support and participate in the strategy.

In the third quarter of this year, Nvidia's revenue from the Singapore market reached $2.7 billion, accounting for about 15 percent of its total revenue.

Huang said Nvidia has two important customers in Singapore: local cloud service providers, with 1,100 AI startups in the country, which are driving demand for cloud GPU consumption in Singapore; The second group of customers are companies that deploy products to China, which trade in Singapore but use their products and services in the Chinese market.