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

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531–540 of 645 posts

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

#531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's many civilized governments... China not civilized? And before human rights becomes the main talking point: Guantanamo.

It's a gradient. How you throw things down on that is up to you. Guantanamo vs. reeducation and labor camps. Paying judges to help keep the local juvenile prison full vs. harvesting organs from prisoners. Suppression of free speech and the media vs. whatever we see on Twitter daily. Civilized or not is up to your perspective.

More like US prison system vs Chinese “camps”. One look at the numbers shows which of those is more oppressive. This includes things like slave labour: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-wo...

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

#532
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a copy past of the TSMC process because they were able to offer far higher higher salaries and attract TSMC talent. Given the reality that they have a lot of that talent and more each year and given the excellent track record of SMIC leadership, they will probably be able to advance on this, limited by the lithography machines they can procure. If their yield was abysmal, no one would be willing to buy the chips…

> limited by the lithography machines they can procure I would consider that a profound hurdle to advancement. Nvidia has already moved to 5nm (released later this year).

It is a hurdle, but as new processes slow it is not insurmountable to raw power.

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

#533
post #495

I am not sure what exactly the thought process is here? So NVIDA is losing Chinese market, probably for the foreseeable future. Chinese are one step away from figuring out this technology anyway, if not already. They will not trust us again. It makes them less dependent on us. Oh, and we still need their manufacturing because of the labor costs, environmental issues, regulations and now, energy costs. How would this…

For the same reason why you don't send good money after bad. A line is drawn in the sand and while this isn't significant at first - it compounds over time, and allows businesses to divest, avoid new relationships and allow existing ones to become redundant. From war-mongering, using arbitrary embargoes as political retaliation, to farcical business practices (e.g. the ARM China saga), to a lop-sided approach to inte…

China will just import the cards via third leg which isn’t sanctionizing them, eg Japan

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

#534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry what does this comment mean? I genuinely don't understand (not a native speaker). EDIT: Oh I think I get it, you want more cooperation, peace, among humans/countries etc. Yeah, most people want it, but in today's world, it is increasingly unlikely. On one hand, I don't like the fact that Western world emphasizes diversity and multiculturalism too much. We are too different, and forcing everyone to accept everyo…

The irony of voicing such an opinion with the name immigrant heart...

Yes sir. I take advantage of coming to a generous Western nation filled with opportunity while earning what most people here could only dream.

Thank you generous Western nation. I hope my contribution, my taxes, my hard work benefits you.

One day I will go back home. I won’t be part of you anymore.

When that time comes, I hope you’ll leave us alone in our own affairs and don’t invade us or bomb us anymore.

Sincerely, A very hard working immigrant who could outwork most of your citizens, who just want to be left alone and prefer peace.

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

#535
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they? Do you know why China stopped submitting any supercomputers to Top500 despite widespread reports of two exascale supercomputers coming online? And why would they prioritize commercial chip sales over national security projects? AMD and Google have already beat Nvidia at the ML accelerator hardware game in the past. Google TPUs have had the edge over Nvidia cards for a few years, and AMD spent almost a decad…

Your contention is that SMIC is successfully operating a high volume 7nm process... in secret? What potential incentive would they have to do that? This isn't a spy novel; if a company has a money factory they tell their investors about it!

They have an incredibly strong incentive which is to buy as many 28nm lithography machines as possible before the US forces ASML not to sell those as well! So they wanted to keep 7nm production secret for as long as possible, because the US operated on the incorrect assumption that blocking EUV sales was enough to stop SMIC from moving forwards.

If you look at the SMIC earnings report, you'll notice they added a new category called "28nm or less". That's their way of telling investors they have a money factory without telling the US to sanction them even more! Also, a very large part of SMIC >32% is owned by the Chinese state, and their profits have been skyrocketing in recent years.

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

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> i doubt that is actually true - the old chinese civilization is long gone. It's like saying that the american indian civilization is still here today. Native American Indian didn't speak English, got obliterated by European settlers, their culture and their language destroyed. The American Indians have zero continuity today. They are a lost people. The Chinese was and still is the same, the Han. Despite Mongol and…

Native American cultures and languages are still very much alive. Have you not heard of the Cherokee and Navajo nations, and the many others? They are definitely not a lost people. Also, not all Chinese people are Han.

Compared to the Han Chinese state today, the Native Americans are in a really really really sad state.

Han Chinese is the biggest Chinese ethnic make up.

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

#537
post #495

I am not sure what exactly the thought process is here? So NVIDA is losing Chinese market, probably for the foreseeable future. Chinese are one step away from figuring out this technology anyway, if not already. They will not trust us again. It makes them less dependent on us. Oh, and we still need their manufacturing because of the labor costs, environmental issues, regulations and now, energy costs. How would this…

For the same reason why you don't send good money after bad. A line is drawn in the sand and while this isn't significant at first - it compounds over time, and allows businesses to divest, avoid new relationships and allow existing ones to become redundant. From war-mongering, using arbitrary embargoes as political retaliation, to farcical business practices (e.g. the ARM China saga), to a lop-sided approach to inte…

>From war-mongering, using arbitrary embargoes as political retaliation, to farcical business practices (e.g. the ARM China saga), to a lop-sided approach to intellectual property and using the state to remove competition

This description fits USA much better than China. Especially the war mongering - China hasn’t invaded anyone for five decades now.

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

#538

There is a newly announced Chinese alternative to those GPUs - the Biren BR100. Fabbed at TSMC. (I guess we are about to see if SMIC can do their 7nm at scale.) https://www.nextplatform.com/2022/08/25/china-launches-the-i... CHINA LAUNCHES THE INEVITABLE INDIGENOUS GPU … Here is how Biren says it stacks up on various machine learning workloads, pitting the BR100 against the Nvidia A100: … We presume this is for AI tr…

Doesn't really matter if they're cheaper and more easily available.

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

#539

And so then Russia buys them via Armenia or Kazakstan for a 30% markup... The only way to really do this is to geo-fence disable the chips.

any vendor has an owner who very likely enjoys traveling to the west, banking there etc. risking being on some black list for a marginal gain is not very attractive prospect

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

#540
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the US government, it's many civilized governments doing these sort of things. And in this particular case this european is grateful for it because it is not about setting ceilings or hindering industry, it's about preventing the abuse of dual use goods. In other words; Not being fsckd by our own stuff. Other examples can be found here: https://www.wassenaar.org/app/uploads/2021/12/Public-Docs-Vo...

What specifically is the downside of allowing export?

I expect there is a real answer and a PR answer to this question; The PR answer has something to do with missile guidance and crypto currency. But the real answer i fear is that limiting import/export allows wars to start more easily.
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