USA has ordered Nvidia and AMD that stop exporting some of their high-performance chips to China, according to Protocol. The US administration has given this order after approving new restrictions that prevent the export of necessary chips to that country for the development of applications related to Artificial Intelligence. The restrictions also affect exports of this type of chip to Russia, worse neither Nvidia nor AMD currently sell products to the country.
In any case, as with other restrictions imposed by the US on trade with China in recent months, the sales ban is not complete, but it is necessary to obtain special authorization to be able to export this type of chip to China from now on. In the authorization request, various details about the recipient of the chips must be offered, among other things, and it is the administration that decides whether to authorize them or not.
As Nvidia has pointed out in an official communication, the reason that the administration has given them for this ban is that there is a risk that the products in question will be diverted to a user in the Chinese military sector. These restrictions immediately affect their high-end server GPUs. Specifically, to the A100 chip. Also to the H100, which has not yet been released, and to the systems that include either of the two. The company confirms that the restriction is not aimed at specific chips, but those that would allow China to achieve advances associated with its high-end GPUs.
In the case of AMD, the chips affected by the restrictions, for the moment, are restricted to chips in the MI200 range, and from the company they point out that at this time they do not believe that the new regulations affect their M100 chips.
The United States Department of Commerce has issued a statement regarding these new restrictions, in which they indicate that they will take measures «related to technologies, end uses, and end users to protect the national security of the United States and its foreign policy interests. This includes preventing China from buying and using US technology in the context of its civil-military fusion program to fuel its military modernization efforts, abusing human rights, and being able to carry out other harmful activities.«.
US authorities also have plans to prevent China from manufacturing chips with FinFET transistors, known as field effect transistors. To do this, it will close their access to the equipment they need to manufacture them. FinFET designs have been widely used for several years now, and are now found in the latest generation of smartphone and server processors.
China is a major market for Nvidia’s sales, and these new restrictions could affect its sales by $400 million a quarter. AMD, for its part, sells much less Artificial Intelligence to China, and from the company they do not believe that this ban will have a very prominent impact on their income.
