hope so! why should computing technology be restricted based on country? this isn't a nuclear missile (and china already has those, with a much saner strategic policy than us too (we have no policy against preemptive strikes!))
DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says
101–110 of 331 posts
Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says
#102What's strange in this discussion of chips and export bans is there's been zero discussion of cloud access, I guess networked computers are difficult for America's gerontocrats to understand. I've rented H100s no problem on American servers and there's no KYC or anything, they let anybody do it.
You can’t really spend $500k on AWS without doing some form of identity disclosure.
A shell company complete with directors of your preferred nationality is trivial to procure for relatively small amounts of money.
Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. And it should be obvious. Drugs are banned and illegal in almost every country, yet they reach the US in vast amounts. Why would a ban on GPUs suddenly work - especially since owning a truckload of GPU is perfectly legal in most countries. Smuggling them to where the demand is, is probably easier than smuggling drugs.
Maybe criminal cartels should switch to GPU trafficking?
By now most Mafias of the world are probably trying to train their own models
Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says
#104Imagine being a blackmarket GPU smuggler. High danger and high reward to get the most advanced AI silicon to a corporation operating under a repressive regime. Sounds straight out of sci-fi.
The wild part is that it sounds sci-fi, but the reality is probably way less glamorous
I don't think a h100 in the prison pocket would be very comfortable.
Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says
#105What's strange in this discussion of chips and export bans is there's been zero discussion of cloud access, I guess networked computers are difficult for America's gerontocrats to understand. I've rented H100s no problem on American servers and there's no KYC or anything, they let anybody do it.
You should really seek to actually understand an issue before you comment so arrogantly.
US authorities are ok with Chinese companies accessing GPUs in overseas DCs because those DCs will still be subject any US export controls. Right now, we don’t really care if Chinese companies are building tier-2 LLMs on US gear. If China invades Taiwan or frontier models approach AGI, we will shut down those Malaysian and Thai data centers overnight.
Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says
#106I recommend everyone to watch GamersNexus' documentary on the NVIDIA AI GPU black market. They explain how companies like DeepSeek can get a hold of chips that are otherwise banned by the US government to export to China https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H3xQaf7BFI
One of the keys being, of course, that the Chinese government doesn't care. Yeah it might require mules bringing the GPUs into China but once they're in China, no one is breaking any laws. Of course DeepSeek is using these GPUs! It's not illegal for them to do so!
The US government doesn't really care either.
We have someone in the comments section talking about how they encountered a bunch of suspicious bidders on their GPU auction. That's not what happens when people care about being potentially investigated for breaking export rules.
Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says
#107Good. Unsurprising (well, known), but good. In fact, the world would be a better place if the US would not use their influence to try to keep other countries down.
China has promised to wage war and forcibly subjugate Taiwan, a democratic ally and critical trade partner. If China backed off Taiwan for a few decades, I think the US would drop export controls.
Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
With their profile in Australia?
While this is likely what the op was suggesting, I would like to point out that in Australia and NZ, it can be a massive pain to find someone who will ship internationally. Normally this is for things like Amazon US, and other US-based companies. There are services[1][2] that advertise virtual postal addresses in your purchase-country where they’ll box and ship it to you. So yes, a Chinese name based in Australia wit…
> Chinese name based in Australia with a shipping address in the US isn’t immediately a red flag
And a good thing, too, or I would be concerned about posting that I knew it was going somewhere forbidden.
Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. And it should be obvious. Drugs are banned and illegal in almost every country, yet they reach the US in vast amounts. Why would a ban on GPUs suddenly work - especially since owning a truckload of GPU is perfectly legal in most countries. Smuggling them to where the demand is, is probably easier than smuggling drugs.
It is easier then smuggling drugs because US is not making it difficult to sidestep the sanctions. Hey, this random house in Delaware is buying a ton of GPUs, should we investigate? Nah, our donors don’t actually want Nvidia stock to go down so ignore it.
Investigate and do what? It's not illegal to buy GPUs, the sanctions have no power in this space. Who could a law even hurt here, the seller who is a single individual? If they made it illegal to individually export them out of the US the Chinese could just buy them somewhere else.