So, for months, Nvidia has been courting the U.S. government and legislators to let it sell cut-down versions of its Blackwell processors or even full-fat Hopper H200 processors (which beat both Ascend 910C and upcoming Ascend 950PR/950DT in FP16/BF16 and FP8) to China, according to media reports. However, if the bill passes as law, then the best things that Nvidia will be able to sell to its Chinese customers in the next 30 months (i.e., till mid-2028) will be its HGX H20, L20 PCIe, and L2 PCIe GPUs that are outdated today and will look antique several years down the road.
Nvidia argues that if it cannot sell reasonably competitive, but performance-capped GPUs to Chinese entities, local hardware developers like Huawei, Biren Technologies, or Moore Threads will quickly dominate the market, which will permanently displace U.S. technology in the People's Republic and will challenge it elsewhere as Chinese companies tend to expand. Nvidia also claims that allowing exports of controlled, downgraded accelerators slows China more effectively than a total ban, because it maintains dependence on U.S. hardware and standards rather than encouraging China to accelerate its own ecosystem. Finally, Nvidia warns that losing China revenue weakens America's overall leadership in high-performance AI computing, as it affects revenue and R&D.
30 months after enactment, the U.S. Department of Commerce will be able to adjust these technical thresholds originally set in 2023, but only with the majority approval of the End-User Review Committee. Furthermore, any planned modifications, along with a detailed assessment of how such changes could alter the capabilities of Chinese AI developers or influence military and cyber applications, must be disclosed to Congress at least 30 days in advance.
The new bill was proposed by Pete Ricketts (R), Chris Coons (D), Tom Cotton (R), Jeanne Shaheen (D), Dave McCormick (R), and Andy Kim (D).
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Anton Shilov Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/senators-lobby-for-safe-chips-act-which-would-curb-leading-edge-ai-chip-exports-to-china-proposed-bill-would-restrict-amd-and-nvidia-to-h20-mi308-class-accelerator-sales-until-2028#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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