Nio says Nvidia chip restrictions won’t hurt them

Li said Wednesday there are many companies in China with artificial intelligence training chips, and that Nio is evaluating opportunities to work with different companies.

But he said the U.S. restrictions would not affect Nio’s long-term strategy.

Last week, automaker Geely said it won’t be affected by the new restrictions, as did autonomous driving start-ups WeRide and Pony.ai.

Earlier this week, Chinese financial news site Caixin reported that He Xiaopeng, chairman of electric car start-up Xpeng, said the restrictions would bring challenges for all autonomous driving algorithm training on cloud computing platforms.

But he said the company has bought enough of the high-tech products to meet demand for the coming years, according to the report. Caixin cited He’s post on a personal WeChat account, which is similar to a private Facebook news feed post.

Xpeng did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.