Not only China, the US is holding back the export of Nvidia and AMD chips also in the Middle East
The United States has expanded its ban on exports of sophisticated artificial intelligence chips from Nvidia and AMD beyond China to other regions, including some Middle Eastern countries. On the occasion of the quarterly, Nvidia had reiterated its opposition to further US bans on exports of AI chips to China.
US crackdown on exports of Nvidia and AMD artificial intelligence chips not only to China, but also to some Middle Eastern countries.
Washington has imposed a restriction on exports of Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) AI chips to some West Asian (Middle East) countries, according to a Reuters report. After imposing a ban on China, West Asia has become the new target of the Biden administration.
Nvidia, which is one of the world's most valuable companies worth $1.2 trillion, said in a regulatory filing this week that the constraints affected its A100 and H100 chips, which are used to accelerate learning activities. automatic on major AI apps, such as ChatGPT.
The report claims that AMD also received a similar letter, advising of the restrictions. However, both companies said the restrictions will have no "immediate material impact" on revenue.
It is not specified which countries in the Middle East are affected by these restrictions.
Washington usually imposes export controls for national security reasons. A similar move announced last year signaled an escalation of US crackdown on China's tech capabilities, but it's unclear what risks are behind exports to the Middle East, noted Reuters .
Currently, the United States prohibits Nvidia from selling the A100 and H100 graphics processing units to China and Russia. Thus, the extension of trade restrictions represents an escalation of the Biden administration's efforts to limit Beijing's ability to capitalize on the boom in artificial intelligence, notes the Guardian .
Although the US chipmaker has specified that the new constraints will not impact revenue, Nvidia has already expressed opposition to it.
All the details.
THE RESTRICTIONS FOR NVIDIA
“During the second quarter of fiscal 2024, the USG (U.S. Government) notified us of an additional licensing requirement for a subset of A100 and H100 products targeting certain customers and other regions, including some Middle East East,” Nvidia said in an Aug. 28 regulatory filing.
In a separate statement, Nvidia said the new licensing requirement “doesn't affect a significant portion of our revenue. We are working with the US government to address this issue."
AND FOR AMD
Last September, AMD also said it had received new licensing requirements that would have halted exports of its MI250 artificial intelligence chips to China.
THE CONSEQUENCES ON THE BUSINESS
In the recent communication, Nvidia did not specify which Middle Eastern countries are included in the US ban.
The company derived the bulk of its $13.5 billion in sales in the fiscal quarter ended July 30 from the United States, China and Taiwan. About 13.9% of sales come from all other countries combined, and Nvidia doesn't anticipate a revenue split from the Middle East.
THE POSITION ON THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION'S DECISION REGARDING AI CHIPS
In its earnings report last week, Nvidia reiterated its opposition to further US bans on exports of AI chips to China, warning they risk causing "permanent damage" to long-term opportunities for US semiconductor companies.
“We believe that the current regulations are getting the desired results. Given the strength of demand for our products around the world, we do not anticipate that any further restrictions, if enacted, would have an immediate material impact on our accounts,” said Colette Kress, CFO of Nvidia, during the shareholder call following the announcement. quarterly, writes Radiocor . "In the long run, however, restrictions that prevent the sale of our GPUs in China would create permanent damage to US industry and its ability to compete and lead one of the world's largest markets."
THE COUNTERMOUSES
To comply with the US bans, Nvidia has introduced the slower A800 and H800 chips for the Chinese market. China's share of data center business revenues (which include artificial intelligence) is 20%-25%. Rivals AMD and Intel have also revealed plans to create less powerful AI chips that can be exported to the Chinese market.
THE US CLAMPDOWN ON CHIPS TOWARDS CHINA
The US has imposed and perhaps will impose more restrictions to prevent China from obtaining technologies for military use, such as chips.
Last October, the Biden administration went a step further by issuing a broad set of export controls, including a measure to bar China from certain semiconductor chips manufactured anywhere in the world with US equipment. "Without American AI chips from companies like Nvidia and AMD, Chinese organizations won't be able to cost-effectively implement the kind of advanced processing used for image recognition," concluded Reuters .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/non-solo-cina-gli-usa-frenano-export-chip-di-nvidia-e-amd-anche-in-medio-oriente/ on Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:55:44 +0000.