US bars Nvidia and AMD from selling AI-centric accelerators to China and Russia
(2022/09/01)
- Reference: 1662007510
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/09/01/us_stops_nvidia_and_amd/
- Source link:
As part of ongoing efforts to restrict China and Russia accessing advanced American technology, the US government last week banned AMD and NVIDIA from selling some AI kit to China.
“The US government has imposed a new license requirement, effective immediately, for any future export to China (including Hong Kong) and Russia of the Company’s A100 and forthcoming H100 integrated circuit,” [1]said Nvidia in an SEC filing.
Items covered by the license include the NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPU, the A100x which adds a data processing unit (SmartNIC) to the A100, and the H100 GPU that Nvidia claims will make natural language processing apps sing.
[2]
“The USG indicated that the new license requirement will address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a ‘military end use’ or ‘military end user’ in China and Russia,” states Nvidia's regulatory filing disclosing the license. The filing adds that the company does not sell products to customers in Russia.
[3]US warns losing access to Taiwanese chips could break the economy
[4]UK blocks sale of chip design software company to China
[5]What are Nvidia and AMD doing getting involved with SmartNICs and VMware?
[6]Arm sues Qualcomm over custom Nuvia CPU cores, wants designs destroyed
Nvidia's filing also warns that the new export license requirement could hinder its ability to develop the H100 or support existing A100 customers and potentially require some operations be moved out of China. Furthermore, it said its Q3 2022 forecast, which included $400 million in sales to China, may now be inaccurate.
Nvidia said it is seeking exemptions from authorities regarding its internal development and support activities. It is also looking to swap out banned products for legal ones for its China-based customers.
[7]
[8]
AMD did not issue an SEC filing about the license, however a spokesperson [9]reportedly said the company has been told to stop shipping its top AI accelerator, the MI250, to China. AMD said it does not expect the rules to have a significant business impact.
AMD [10]reportedly alerted its China operations of the changes on Wednesday.
[11]
News of the bans caused Nvidia shares to fall two percent and AMD shares to fall 3.7 percent in after hours trading.
The US has steadily restricted China’s access to semiconductor tech since at least 2019 when the Trump administration banned Huawei from buying vital US technology without approval and prohibited its equipment from appearing in US telecom networks.
Last month, the US formally [12]banned the export of four technologies tied to semiconductor manufacturing, citing they were “vital to national security.” The ban included the export of two ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor materials, as well as some types of electronic computer-aided design (ECAD) software, which is commonly used to scale semiconductors to 3 nanometers or less, and pressure gain combustion (PGC) technology.
[13]
China has a policy to deploy AI widely to power government services and make industry more productive.
The new license will therefore bother Beijing, and perhaps also raise the stakes of already tense [14]US-Taiwan-China relations because Nvidia and AMD both have some chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). ®
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[1] https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/000104581022000146/nvda-20220826.htm
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YxCCume5kEkuz8Hsq19DkQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/21/us_taiwan_chips_china/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/19/uk_chip_company_sale_china/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/31/amd_nvidia_vmware/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/31/arm_sues_qualcomm/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YxCCume5kEkuz8Hsq19DkQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YxCCume5kEkuz8Hsq19DkQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.reuters.com/technology/amd-says-us-told-it-stop-shipping-top-ai-chip-china-2022-08-31/
[10] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/U.S.-tightens-chip-export-rules-to-China-hitting-Nvidia-and-AMD
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YxCCume5kEkuz8Hsq19DkQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/15/us_bans_3nm_exports/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YxCCume5kEkuz8Hsq19DkQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/04/taiwanese_military_reports_ddos_in/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
“The US government has imposed a new license requirement, effective immediately, for any future export to China (including Hong Kong) and Russia of the Company’s A100 and forthcoming H100 integrated circuit,” [1]said Nvidia in an SEC filing.
Items covered by the license include the NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPU, the A100x which adds a data processing unit (SmartNIC) to the A100, and the H100 GPU that Nvidia claims will make natural language processing apps sing.
[2]
“The USG indicated that the new license requirement will address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a ‘military end use’ or ‘military end user’ in China and Russia,” states Nvidia's regulatory filing disclosing the license. The filing adds that the company does not sell products to customers in Russia.
[3]US warns losing access to Taiwanese chips could break the economy
[4]UK blocks sale of chip design software company to China
[5]What are Nvidia and AMD doing getting involved with SmartNICs and VMware?
[6]Arm sues Qualcomm over custom Nuvia CPU cores, wants designs destroyed
Nvidia's filing also warns that the new export license requirement could hinder its ability to develop the H100 or support existing A100 customers and potentially require some operations be moved out of China. Furthermore, it said its Q3 2022 forecast, which included $400 million in sales to China, may now be inaccurate.
Nvidia said it is seeking exemptions from authorities regarding its internal development and support activities. It is also looking to swap out banned products for legal ones for its China-based customers.
[7]
[8]
AMD did not issue an SEC filing about the license, however a spokesperson [9]reportedly said the company has been told to stop shipping its top AI accelerator, the MI250, to China. AMD said it does not expect the rules to have a significant business impact.
AMD [10]reportedly alerted its China operations of the changes on Wednesday.
[11]
News of the bans caused Nvidia shares to fall two percent and AMD shares to fall 3.7 percent in after hours trading.
The US has steadily restricted China’s access to semiconductor tech since at least 2019 when the Trump administration banned Huawei from buying vital US technology without approval and prohibited its equipment from appearing in US telecom networks.
Last month, the US formally [12]banned the export of four technologies tied to semiconductor manufacturing, citing they were “vital to national security.” The ban included the export of two ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor materials, as well as some types of electronic computer-aided design (ECAD) software, which is commonly used to scale semiconductors to 3 nanometers or less, and pressure gain combustion (PGC) technology.
[13]
China has a policy to deploy AI widely to power government services and make industry more productive.
The new license will therefore bother Beijing, and perhaps also raise the stakes of already tense [14]US-Taiwan-China relations because Nvidia and AMD both have some chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/000104581022000146/nvda-20220826.htm
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YxCCume5kEkuz8Hsq19DkQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/21/us_taiwan_chips_china/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/19/uk_chip_company_sale_china/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/31/amd_nvidia_vmware/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/31/arm_sues_qualcomm/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YxCCume5kEkuz8Hsq19DkQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YxCCume5kEkuz8Hsq19DkQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.reuters.com/technology/amd-says-us-told-it-stop-shipping-top-ai-chip-china-2022-08-31/
[10] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/U.S.-tightens-chip-export-rules-to-China-hitting-Nvidia-and-AMD
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YxCCume5kEkuz8Hsq19DkQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/15/us_bans_3nm_exports/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YxCCume5kEkuz8Hsq19DkQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/04/taiwanese_military_reports_ddos_in/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: "the US government last week banned AMD and NVIDIA from selling some AI kit to China"
Def
In this day and age you don't even need to sell the kit.
You just set up a hosting company (or whatever) in some innocuous third country, offer services to paying customers, quietly buy slightly more kit than you need, and run whatever research you need to do on the quiet. Discreetly upload the results to a server somewhere and no-one's the wiser.
Banning sales and/or exports based on geopolitical reasoning is a pretty much a waste of time these days.
"the US government last week banned AMD and NVIDIA from selling some AI kit to China"
Okay, fine, but how difficult is it actually to set up a few shell companies that end up selling kit to China ?
Not that I'm saying Nvidia would do that, but China might.