The Biden administration has tightened the export restrictions on Nvidia's GPUs. Of course full export ban is on Russia and PRC.
The rules, which were
leaked earlier this month, take a nation-based approach where countries are divided into one of three tiers. One tier puts no chip export restrictions on countries, which are 18 US allies, while a second tier puts some quantity restrictions on other countries. The third tier bars all advanced chip exports to countries on that list entirely.
Last week, a report found that countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Nordic countries, and most of Western Europe would face no chip restrictions, meaning they can import as many advanced US chips as they'd like.
But much of Central and South America as well as much of Africa, the Middle East, Portugal, Eastern Europe, Switzerland, and Southeast Asia would face some restrictions. Nations in this second tier would still be able to import some advanced AI chips, but they would be subject to a maximum of 1,700 advanced GPUs per order without a license, with orders under 1,700 not counting toward the per-country maximum of 50,000 advanced GPUs each.
The White House says this 1,700 number should be enough for most purposes. "The overwhelming majority of chip orders are in this category, especially those being placed by universities, medical institutions, and research organizations for clearly innocuous purposes. Streamlined processing of these orders represents an improvement over the status quo, rapidly accelerating low-risk shipments of US technology around the world," the Biden White House's
release reads.
Nvidia protested.
US Further Restricts Nvidia AI Exports, Caps GPU Purchases for Select Nations
I do expect in the upcoming years home grown AI chips designed and made by PRC, as they are already doing with CPUs.
contrarian.substack.com
gizmodo.com
