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US Government Bans Export of Nvidia A100 and H100 GPUs to China and Russia

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Re: US Government Bans Export of Nvidia A100 and H100 GPUs to China and Russia

#301

Post by abeppu »

> A license is required to export technology to support or develop covered products. 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.

Can someone who actually knows how this kind of thing works comment on how hard it would be to satisfy such a license requirement? Like, presumably the large share of uses are _not_ military ... but is it prohibitively difficult for e.g. a Chinese company legitimately doing lots of ML for consumer products and services to credibly show that they're going to use them only for that purpose? Or is the presumption that eventually if the ban works, the Chinese government would just seize the GPUs from any company that had them, so no non-military uses can get them either?

Re: US Government Bans Export of Nvidia A100 and H100 GPUs to China and Russia

#303

Post by k_sze »

throwaway4good wrote: post #291
lukas099 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would somebody mind explaining how this will cause a price surge? I don't understand the economics of it.

Chips are mostly development cost; once designed they cost little to produce and even less with economies of scale. Cutting yourself off the massive Chinese market will cause more expensive tech in the west as there are fewer people to sponsor its development.

But I thought the price surge of nvidia gpus in the past few years were demand-driven because of crypto mining?

Re: US Government Bans Export of Nvidia A100 and H100 GPUs to China and Russia

#304

Post by MarkSweep »

LionTamer wrote: post #264
zerohp wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government has been setting the ceiling on performance that can be exported since the beginning of the computer industry. This is not really new but NVidia was caught by a surprise change in the limits.

When was this done previously?

There are all kinds of things subject to export restrictions:

https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/regulations/export-adminis...

For example, high resolution analog to digital converters have restrictions. In the past strong cryptography even had restrictions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...

Even travel for US citizens was restricted. I have relatives who were in the semiconductor and aerospace industries during the 1980s. They were advised by the government to not attempt to travel to the Eastern Bloc. Some kinda related reading:

https://academic.oup.com/dh/article-abstract/43/1/57/5068654...

Re: US Government Bans Export of Nvidia A100 and H100 GPUs to China and Russia

#307

Post by kube-system »

withinboredom wrote: post #142
RichardCNormos wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always hoped that the US would restrict hardware exports under ITAR, as AI is absolutely a military weapon. I doubt, though, that they will restrict the export of the raw material for creating AI: data.

They can’t even get their own companies to restrict the use of their citizen’s data lol.

They intentionally choose not to.

Re: US Government Bans Export of Nvidia A100 and H100 GPUs to China and Russia

#308

Post by gred »

butterfly771 wrote: post #273
alphabetting wrote: post #72

To me this is a pretty clear message that the US will defend Taiwan with full force.

As a Chinese, what I want to say is that populism here has risen rapidly in recent years, the Thucydides trap has been fulfilled again, and a war is basically inevitable. is the United States determined to deal with this earth war? How much are you willing to pay to protect Taiwan?

We'd be seeing significantly less concern in the West if the "official" Chinese worldview were more democratic, less authoritarian, more humanistic, and less illiberal.

How long will it take for the emerging Chinese middle class to force changes internally, move up Maslow's hierarchy, and demand freedom of conscience, speech, religion, assembly, press, petition, and privacy? IMO it's a bit of a race between the Chinese middle class' moderating influence and whatever spark (Taiwan?) sends us tumbling to war. Maybe if we can make it 60 more years (2 generations) without a war, the Chinese middle class will pick up some momentum in demanding their rights. That's the larger, longer-term tragedy of Tiananmen Square, that it set this process back decades (again, IMO).

Re: US Government Bans Export of Nvidia A100 and H100 GPUs to China and Russia

#309

Post by AbrahamParangi »

butterfly771 wrote: post #273
alphabetting wrote: post #72

To me this is a pretty clear message that the US will defend Taiwan with full force.

As a Chinese, what I want to say is that populism here has risen rapidly in recent years, the Thucydides trap has been fulfilled again, and a war is basically inevitable. is the United States determined to deal with this earth war? How much are you willing to pay to protect Taiwan?

As you can see in Ukraine, Americans love an underdog. If Russia’s nuclear deterrent were any weaker, American soldiers would be fighting in Donetsk and the Harry S. Truman would be in the Black Sea.

Re: US Government Bans Export of Nvidia A100 and H100 GPUs to China and Russia

#310

Post by kube-system »

throwaway4good wrote: post #291
lukas099 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would somebody mind explaining how this will cause a price surge? I don't understand the economics of it.

Chips are mostly development cost; once designed they cost little to produce and even less with economies of scale. Cutting yourself off the massive Chinese market will cause more expensive tech in the west as there are fewer people to sponsor its development.

Chips are mostly supply limited over the past few years. Economies of scale go away or even decrease once you reach the limits of your production.
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