The Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD presents its models at the Open Space Area during the IAA Mobility in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, on September 12, 2025.
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BYD has a backup plan if it gets cut off from the Nvidia chips it currently uses in its cars, a top executive at the Chinese electric carmaker told CNBC on Tuesday.
Stella Li, executive vice president at BYD, said the company had not received any directive from the Chinese government to stop using Nvidia chips — but if it did, it has a plan B.
“Everybody has a backup. BYD has [a] backup,” Li told CNBC’s Dan Murphy.
Li declined to expand on what the plan is, but she pointed to the Covid-19 pandemic during which there was a global shortage of semiconductors which badly affected the auto sector. BYD had “no issue” at the time because it developed a lot of its technology in-house, he said, so it was able to source alternatives quickly.
Indeed, BYD has sought to have control over large parts of its supply chain, from manufacturing its own cars to developing its own batteries.
“We have a lot of strong … even deeper technology in-house, so we always have backup,” Li said.
Nvidia, whose chips underpin much of the world’s artificial intelligence development, has been caught in the crossfire amid U.S.-China tensions. The company’s H20 AI chip — designed specifically to comply with U.S. export restrictions to China — was first banned, then permitted to be sold in China this year after a revenue-share deal between Washington and Nvidia.
Now, China has reportedly been discouraging local tech firms from buying Nvidia’s AI chips.
Nvidia designs an entirely different set of semiconductors for cars, however.
One of Nvidia’s systems, Nvidia Drive AGX Orin, is designed to enable cars to carry out some driving tasks autonomously. BYD is a customer of this product.
There is no indication so far that the Chinese government is looking to ban this Nvidia system.
Li said BYD had not been told to stop using any Nvidia products, adding it was unlikely that Beijing would ban the U.S. firm’s auto chips.
“I don’t think any country will do that, because this automatic will kill Nvidia,” Li said. “So Nvidia now is the highest market value company, so if they lose the big market from China … nobody wants to see this.”
