Latest news with #AIChips
South China Morning Post
11 hours ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
US-China trade talks begin in London, Egypt's new capital project: SCMP daily highlights
Catch up on some of SCMP's biggest China stories of the day. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing Top economic officials from China and the United States have kick-started a crucial round of trade talks in London, as the world watches closely to see if the two sides can agree to roll back their 'chokehold' controls over critical minerals and advanced technologies. China has initiated the world's first large-scale application of non-binary AI chips, integrating its proprietary hybrid computing technology into critical sectors including aviation and industrial systems. Workers transport soil containing rare earth elements for export at a port in China's Jiangsu province. Photo: Reuters In a reflection of Beijing's ability to quickly leverage its dominance over the critical-mineral supply chain, the value of rare earth elements exported by China last month plunged by nearly half compared with a year prior.
Bloomberg
23-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Trade tensions flare between US and China over Huawei's AI chips
The US and China's fragile tariff truce is at risk, as Washington seeks to prevent sanctioned Huawei's AI chips from gaining a global foothold. Beijing in turn accused the Trump administration of undermining recent trade talks in Switzerland, Rebecca Choong Wilkins reports. (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Marc Andreessen says the US needs to lead open-sourced AI: 'Imagine if the entire world — including the US — runs on Chinese software'
Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said the US needs to open-source AI. Otherwise, the country risks ceding control to China, the longtime investor said. The stakes are high as AI is set to "intermediate" key institutions like education, law, and medicine, he said. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has a clear warning: America needs to get serious about open-source AI or risk ceding control to China. "Just close your eyes," the cofounder of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz said in an interview on tech show TBPN published on Saturday. "Imagine two states of the world: One in which the entire world runs on American open-source LLM, and the other is where the entire world, including the US, runs on all Chinese software." Andreessen's comments come amid an intensifying US-China tech rivalry and a growing debate over open- and closed-source AI. Open-source models are freely accessible, allowing anyone to study, modify, and build upon them. Closed-source models are tightly controlled by the companies that develop them. Chinese firms have largely favored the open-source route, while US tech giants have taken a more proprietary approach. Last week, the US issued a warning against the use of US AI chips for Chinese models. It also issued new guidelines banning the use of Huawei's Ascend AI chips globally, citing national security concerns. "These chips were likely developed or produced in violation of US export controls," the US Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security said in a statement on its website. As the hardware divide between the US and China deepens, attention is also on software and AI, where control over the underlying models is increasingly seen as a matter of technological sovereignty. Andreessen said it's "plausible" and "entirely feasible" that open-source AI could become the global standard. Companies would need to "adjust to that if it happens," he said, adding that widespread access to "free" AI would be a "pretty magical result." Still, for him, the debate isn't just about access. It's about values — and where control lies. Andreessen said he believes it's important that there's an American open-source champion or a Western open-source large language model. A country that builds its own models also shapes the values, assumptions, and messaging embedded in them. "Open weights is great, but the open weights, they're baked, right?" he said. "The training is in the weights, and you can't really undo that." For Andreessen, the stakes are high. AI is going to "intermediate" key institutions like the courts, schools, and medical systems, which is why it's "really critical," he said. Andreessen's firm, Andreessen Horowitz, backs Sam Altman's OpenAI and Elon Musk's xAI, among other AI companies. The VC did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. China has been charging ahead in the open-source AI race. While US firms focused on building powerful models locked behind paywalls and enterprise licenses, Chinese companies have been giving some of theirs away. In January, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek released R1, a large language model that rivals ChatGPT's o1 but at a fraction of the cost, the company said. The open-sourced model raised questions about the billions spent training closed models in the US. Andreessen earlier called it "AI's Sputnik moment." Major players like OpenAI — long criticized for its closed approach — have started to shift course. "I personally think we have been on the wrong side of history here and need to figure out a different open source strategy," Altman said in February. In March, OpenAI announced that it was preparing to roll out its first open-weight language model with advanced reasoning capabilities since releasing GPT-2 in 2019. In a letter to employees earlier this month announcing that the company's nonprofit would stay in control, Altman said: "We want to open source very capable models." The AI race is also increasingly defined by questions of national sovereignty. Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, said last year at the World Government Summit in Dubai that every country should have its own AI systems. Huang said countries should ensure they own the production of their intelligence and the data produced and work toward building "sovereign AI." "It codifies your culture, your society's intelligence, your common sense, your history — you own your own data," he added. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Marc Andreessen says the US needs to lead open-sourced AI: 'Imagine if the entire world — including the US — runs on Chinese software'
Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said the US needs to open-source AI. Otherwise, the country risks ceding control to China, the longtime investor said. The stakes are high as AI is set to "intermediate" key institutions like education, law, and medicine, he said. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has a clear warning: America needs to get serious about open-source AI or risk ceding control to China. "Just close your eyes," the cofounder of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz said in an interview on tech show TBPN published on Saturday. "Imagine two states of the world: One in which the entire world runs on American open-source LLM, and the other is where the entire world, including the US, runs on all Chinese software." Andreessen's comments come amid an intensifying US-China tech rivalry and a growing debate over open- and closed-source AI. Open-source models are freely accessible, allowing anyone to study, modify, and build upon them. Closed-source models are tightly controlled by the companies that develop them. Chinese firms have largely favored the open-source route, while US tech giants have taken a more proprietary approach. Last week, the US issued a warning against the use of US AI chips for Chinese models. It also issued new guidelines banning the use of Huawei's Ascend AI chips globally, citing national security concerns. "These chips were likely developed or produced in violation of US export controls," the US Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security said in a statement on its website. As the hardware divide between the US and China deepens, attention is also on software and AI, where control over the underlying models is increasingly seen as a matter of technological sovereignty. Andreessen said it's "plausible" and "entirely feasible" that open-source AI could become the global standard. Companies would need to "adjust to that if it happens," he said, adding that widespread access to "free" AI would be a "pretty magical result." Still, for him, the debate isn't just about access. It's about values — and where control lies. Andreessen said he believes it's important that there's an American open-source champion or a Western open-source large language model. A country that builds its own models also shapes the values, assumptions, and messaging embedded in them. "Open weights is great, but the open weights, they're baked, right?" he said. "The training is in the weights, and you can't really undo that." For Andreessen, the stakes are high. AI is going to "intermediate" key institutions like the courts, schools, and medical systems, which is why it's "really critical," he said. Andreessen's firm, Andreessen Horowitz, backs Sam Altman's OpenAI and Elon Musk's xAI, among other AI companies. The VC did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. China has been charging ahead in the open-source AI race. While US firms focused on building powerful models locked behind paywalls and enterprise licenses, Chinese companies have been giving some of theirs away. In January, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek released R1, a large language model that rivals ChatGPT's o1 but at a fraction of the cost, the company said. The open-sourced model raised questions about the billions spent training closed models in the US. Andreessen earlier called it "AI's Sputnik moment." Major players like OpenAI — long criticized for its closed approach — have started to shift course. "I personally think we have been on the wrong side of history here and need to figure out a different open source strategy," Altman said in February. In March, OpenAI announced that it was preparing to roll out its first open-weight language model with advanced reasoning capabilities since releasing GPT-2 in 2019. In a letter to employees earlier this month announcing that the company's nonprofit would stay in control, Altman said: "We want to open source very capable models." The AI race is also increasingly defined by questions of national sovereignty. Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, said last year at the World Government Summit in Dubai that every country should have its own AI systems. Huang said countries should ensure they own the production of their intelligence and the data produced and work toward building "sovereign AI." "It codifies your culture, your society's intelligence, your common sense, your history — you own your own data," he added. Read the original article on Business Insider
Zawya
15-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
US close to letting UAE import millions of Nvidia's AI chips, sources say
NEW YORK/DUBAI: The U.S. has a preliminary agreement with the United Arab Emirates to allow it to import 500,000 of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips per year, starting in 2025, two sources familiar with the situation said, boosting the Emirates' construction of data centers vital to developing artificial intelligence models. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreement was at least through 2027, but that there was a chance it could be in place until 2030. The draft deal called for 20% of the chips, or 100,000 of them per year, to go to UAE's tech firm G42, while the rest would be split among U.S. companies with massive AI operations like Microsoft and Oracle that might also seek to build data centers in the UAE, the sources said. They said the agreement is still being negotiated and could change before being finalized. One source said the deal, elements of which were first reported by the New York Times, faced growing opposition in the U.S. government over the past day. The Biden administration issued restrictions on AI chip exports to control the flow of the sophisticated processors worldwide, in part to keep the prized semiconductors from being diverted to China, where they could bolster Beijing's military. U.S. President Donald Trump this week is on a tour of the Gulf region and on Tuesday announced $600 billion worth of commitments from Saudi Arabia, including deals to buy large quantities of chips from Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm. Trump has made improving ties with some Gulf countries a key goal of his administration. The chips in the UAE deal that would go to G42 would represent a tripling or quadrupling, in terms of compute power, that would have been available to the UAE under rules put in place by the administration of former President Joe Biden. The Trump administration said last week it planned to rescind that regulation. At present, the vast majority of AI computing power is deployed in the United States and China. If all the proposed deals in Gulf states, and the UAE in particular, come together, the region would become a third power center in global AI competition. The U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, did not have a comment. The White House, G42 and the United Arab Emirates did not have an immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, the UAE's ruling family and U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake hold stakes in G42. The tech holding group's chairman, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is the UAE national security adviser and brother of the Emirates' president. The preliminary agreement also aims to promote data centers in the U.S. It currently says that for every facility G42 builds in the UAE, it must build a similar one in the U.S., the sources said. One of the sources said the definition of what is an advanced AI chip would be figured out in a separate working group that will be created later, along with security requirements. The proposed numbers of chips are for the most advanced graphics processing units, one of the sources said. As of now, that could refer to Nvidia Blackwell chips, which are more powerful than the previous generation of Hopper chips, or Nvidia's forthcoming Rubin chips, which are more powerful than both of their predecessors.
