Latest news with #exportcontrols
Malay Mail
3 hours ago
- Business
- Malay Mail
Nvidia's resumption of AI chips to China is part of rare earths talks, says US
WASHINGTON, July 16 — Nvidia's planned resumption of sales of its H20 AI chips to China is part of US negotiations on rare earths, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said yesterday, and comes days after its CEO met President Donald Trump. 'We put that in the trade deal with the magnets,' Lutnick told Reuters, referring to an agreement Trump made to restart rare earth shipments to US manufacturers. He did not provide additional detail. Nvidia said late on Monday that it is filing applications with the US government to resume sales to China of its H20 graphics processing unit, and has been assured by the US it will get the licences soon. The planned resumption is a reversal of an export restriction imposed in April that is designed to keep the most advanced AI chips out of Chinese hands over national security concerns, an issue that has found rare bipartisan support. It drew swift questions and criticism from US legislators yesterday. The decision 'would not only hand our foreign adversaries our most advanced technologies, but is also dangerously inconsistent with this Administration's previously-stated position on export controls for China,' Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, ranking member of the House of Representatives Select Committee on China, said in a statement. Republican John Moolenaar, chair of that committee, said in a statement he would seek 'clarification' from the Commerce Department. 'The H20 is a powerful chip that, according to our bipartisan investigation, played a significant role in the rise of PRC AI companies like DeepSeek,' Moolenaar said, referring to a Chinese startup that claims to have built AI models at a fraction of the cost paid by US firms such as OpenAI. 'It is crucial that the US maintain its lead and keep advanced AI out of the hands of the CCP.' Shares of Nvidia, the world's most valuable firm, closed up 4 per cent and were nearly unchanged in after-market trading. Nvidia had estimated that the curbs would cut its revenue by US$15 billion (RM63.8 billion). Nvidia's plan to resume sales has set off a scramble at Chinese firms to buy H20 chips, two sources told Reuters. The chips that Nvidia will resume selling are the best it can legally offer in China but lack much of the computing power of the versions for sale outside of China because of previous restrictions put in place by Trump's first administration and then President Joe Biden's administration. But critically, H20 chips work with Nvidia's software tools, which have become a de facto standard in the global AI industry. CEO Jensen Huang, who is visiting Beijing and set to speak at an event today, has argued that Nvidia's leadership position could slip away if the company cannot sell to Chinese developers being courted by Huawei Technologies with chips produced in China. The significance of the shift depends on the volume of H20 chips that the US allows to be shipped to China, said Divyansh Kaushik, an AI expert at Beacon Global Strategies, a Washington-based advisory firm. 'If China is able to get a million H20 chips, it could significantly narrow, if not overtake, the US lead in AI,' he said. China is crucial 'The Chinese market is massive, dynamic, and highly innovative, and it's also home to many AI researchers,' Huang told Chinese state broadcaster CCTV yesterday. China generated US$17 billion in revenue for Nvidia in the fiscal year ending January 26, or 13 per cent of total sales, based on its latest annual report. Internet giants ByteDance and Tencent are also in the process of submitting applications for H20 chips, the sources familiar with the matter said. Central to the process is an approved list put together by Nvidia for Chinese companies to register for potential purchases, one of the sources said. Tencent did not respond to a request for comment. ByteDance denied in a statement that it is currently submitting applications. Nvidia declined to comment on the approved list system. Asked at a regular foreign ministry briefing in Beijing about Nvidia's plans to resume AI chip sales, a spokesperson said: 'China is opposed to the politicisation, instrumentalisation and weaponisation of science, technology and economic and trade issues to maliciously blockade and suppress China.' China halted exports of rare earths in March following a trade spat with Trump that has shown some signs of easing. It dominates the market for rare earths, a group of 17 metals used in cellphones, weapons, electric vehicles, and more. Huang's visit is being closely watched in both China and the United States, where a bipartisan pair of senators last week sent the CEO a letter asking him to abstain from meeting companies working with military or intelligence bodies. The senators also asked Huang to refrain from meeting with entities named on the United States' restricted export list. Rival AI chipmaker AMD also said the Department of Commerce would review its licence applications to export its MI308 chips to China; it plans to resume those shipments when licences are approved, it said. Its shares gained 7 per cent in trading yesterday. — Reuters
Bloomberg
12 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
China Chip Curb Revisions Could Preview More Rare Earths Trade
Anna Ashton, a former China analyst with the Defense Department, says the administration's reversal on sales of some semiconductors to China and other rollbacks of export controls may indicate an increase in willingness to deal in rare earth minerals between the US and China. (Source: Bloomberg)
The National
12 hours ago
- Business
- The National
White House AI chief says Biden hurt Gulf AI ambitions
The White House cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence adviser has blamed the Biden administration for stifling Middle East technology ambitions, particularly in the AI space. David Sacks made the comments on Tuesday during a round-table discussion at the Pennsylvania Energy and AI Summit, which President Donald Trump is scheduled to attend. He said former president Joe Biden's push to increase export controls that limited access to processing units deemed critical to pro-AI countries such as the UAE that are seeking to be leaders in the sector. Those export controls sought to prevent countries such as China from taking the lead in the AI arena but other nations, many of them US allies, were disproportionately affected by the policies. 'We already have hostile relations with a country on one side of the Persian Gulf,' Mr Sacks said, referring to Iran. 'Do we have to alienate everybody?' Alleviating some of these concerns, however, was Mr Trump's announcement in May during a visit to the UAE of a partnership in the form of a new 5-gigawatt UAE-US AI campus. Proponents of the deal highlighted security guarantees that would prevent the misuse of US technology, CPUs and GPUs. 'I know that our Gulf state partners will honour our security agreement,' Mr Sacks said. He added that stories of chip smuggling to other countries were overblown and oversimplified. 'The stories give people the impression that the chips are like diamonds in a briefcase that can be smuggled,' he explained. 'They're not, they're mainframe computers, it's not easy.' Mr Sacks added that inspectors can easily keep track of servers at data centres to ensure that US technology is accounted for. He also accused the Biden administration of placing too many burdens on US tech companies with the executive order that sought to put guardrails on AI development by emphasising data privacy and labour protection. Mr Sacks pointed out that in the days after inauguration, Mr Trump rescinded Mr Biden's executive order. Ahead of the conference, Nvidia, which has been a vocal critic of export control policies under the Biden administration, announced that following meetings with Mr Trump and other US officials, the company would soon be able to sell its Nvidia H20 GPU in China again. 'Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,' the company said. Also taking part in the summit was Khaldoon Al Mubarak, managing director and chief executive of UAE-based Mubadala Investment Company, who highlighted Mubadala's push to have an AI member as a consultant on its investment committee. 'The AI co-pilot that sits with us in the committee with all the board members, and all the investment committee members, obviously get to interact directly agent,' he said. Mr Al Mubarak said the UAE's economic history – from the rise and fall of the pearl industry that preceded a boom in oil and natural gas that helped propel the country to unprecedented prosperity – serves as a compass as it navigates its AI ambitions. 'At some point, this [oil and gas] was going to be disrupted, and I think that was the wise approach that our leadership and my government took,' he said, pointing out the UAE's push over the last decade to invest in AI. Mr Al Mubarak highlighted the creation of the UAE's Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) – where he currently serves as chairman of the board of trustees – in 2019 as proof the country was ahead of the curve in identifying AI as an economic game-changer.
Forbes
15 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Nvidia To Resume China Chip Sales Again With RTX Pro
SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA - The biggest American tech company by market cap is now poised to resume chip sales to China with a new variant aimed at complying with export controls. Tech media reports this comes after a meeting between CEO Jensen Huang and Donald Trump, in the White House. This is the second time that Nvidia's permission to sell in China has changed. As widely reported in April, the firm got re-approved to sell chips to China after a dinner meeting between Huang and Trump in the spring, apparently including a tit-for-tat deal in which Nvidia would create new server setups stateside. Now, in the most recent edition of the saga, Trump seems to be hyping the company's value to the U.S. and tying it to his greater export strategy, with this post: "NVIDIA IS UP 47% SINCE TRUMP TARIFFS. USA is taking in Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs," Trump posted on Truth Social. "COUNTRY IS NOW 'BACK.'" As for value, Huang has estimated China's total chip market around $50 billion, and said that a ban on sales there would cost the company around $8 billion. Nvidia's Exportable Architecture Part of the change reportedly involves a different kind of Nvidia chip than the H20 which the U.S. government had banned for Chinese export. The rule on sales to China seems to be aimed at limiting what kinds of power the Middle Kingdom can get its hand on – in terms of memory and overall capability. I asked ChatGPT what's special about the new 'China chip,' and the model supplied this: 'The China-specific variant is derived from the Blackwell RTX Pro 6000, but is underpowered relative to the flagship — it uses GDDR7 memory instead of HBM and lacks NVLink.' That design presumably aims at working with the following limitations imposed by U.S. officials, as cited by Connie Loizos at TechCrunch: 'Specific performance thresholds, including total memory bandwidth of 1,400 gigabytes per second or input/output bandwidth of 1,100 GB per second.' On to China Huang is also expected to attend the International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing days after the announcement, and may want to meet with China's premier Li Qiang. It's important to note that Nvidia won't actually be shipping for a while: the new chip will not start rolling into the Chinese market until September (or later). How is Huang pushing the pros of Nvidia selling to China? Zijing Wu and Cheng Leng report this at the Financial Times July 9: 'Speaking at the Computex tech show in Taiwan in May, the CEO condemned US export controls aimed at limiting China's access to AI chips as 'a failure.' He said they had inspired Chinese companies to accelerate the development of their own AI products.' RTX Pro Adoption In related news, CoreWeave announced it will assimilate the new chip into its cloud platform. As a hyperscaler, the firm has garnered a lot of attention for robust growth based on events like a strategic deal with OpenAI, and a partnership with IBM where CoreWeave will provide compute capacity for IBM's Granite AI models. "CoreWeave is built to move at the speed of innovation, and with the new RTX PRO 6000-based instances, we're once again first to bring advanced AI and graphics technology to the cloud,' said CoreWeave CTO Peter Salanki in a press statement. So as the Nvidia market cap hits a staggering $4 trillion, the company will be busy selling on both sides of an increasingly connected world market. Market Trends Amid all of this, Nvidia stock gained by double digits this month, and nearly doubled from values this spring. The U.S./China trade tensions are a major factor in both tech markets. As we ponder the rapid advances in model capabilities, we also have to keep an eye on hardware markets, not to mention things like environmental concerns from data centers, and what these innovations will mean for our societies. Keep an eye out for more on these developments.
Fast Company
17 hours ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Nvidia is set to resume sales of its AI chips to China. Here's who's on the ‘whitelist' of buyers
Chinese firms are scrambling to buy Nvidia's H20 artificial intelligence chips, two sources told Reuters, as the company said it planned to resume sales to the mainland days after its CEO met U.S. President Donald Trump. Nvidia's AI chips have been a key focus of U.S. export controls designed to keep the most advanced chips out of Chinese hands over national security concerns. The U.S.-listed company has said the curbs would cut its revenue by $15 billion. The world's most valuable firm is filing applications with the U.S. government to resume sales to China of the H20 graphics processing unit (GPU), and expects to get the licences soon, Nvidia said in a statement. 'The U.S. government has assured Nvidia that licences will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,' said the company, whose chief executive, Jensen Huang, is visiting Beijing and set to speak at an event on Wednesday. The White House, which has previously expressed concern that the Chinese military could use AI chips to develop weapons, did not respond to a request for comment. Chinese companies have scrambled to place orders for the chips, which Nvidia would then need to send to the U.S. government for approval, the sources familiar with the matter said. They added that internet giants ByteDance and Tencent are in the process of submitting applications. Central to the process is a 'whitelist' put together by Nvidia for Chinese companies to register for potential purchases, one of the sources said. ByteDance and Tencent did not respond to a request for comment. Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment regarding the 'whitelist'. Nvidia, which has criticised the export curbs the Trump administration imposed in April that stopped it from selling its H20 chip in China, also said it has introduced a new model tailored to meet regulatory rules in the Chinese market. Huang is set for a media briefing in Beijing on Wednesday when he attends a supply chain expo. The Nvidia CEO also visited China in April and stressed the importance of the Chinese market. 'The Chinese market is massive, dynamic, and highly innovative, and it's also home to many AI researchers,' Huang told Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Tuesday. 'Therefore, it is indeed crucial for American companies to establish roots in the Chinese market.' Nvidia's shares jumped 5% in premarket trading. Rival AI chipmaker AMD, which has forecast a $1.5 billion revenue hit this year due to U.S. export curbs on China, rose more than 3%. 'This is a major catalyst for Nvidia shares, as many had written off the chance of any meaningful revenue coming from China,' said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown. Asked at a regular foreign ministry briefing in Beijing about Nvidia's plans to resume AI chip sales, a spokesperson said, 'China is opposed to the politicisation, instrumentalisation and weaponisation of science, technology and economic and trade issues to maliciously blockade and suppress China.' SUPPLY CHAIN Nvidia has faced increased competition from Chinese tech giant Huawei and other makers of GPUs — the chips used to train artificial intelligence. But Chinese companies, including big tech firms, still crave Nvidia chips for its computing platform known as CUDA. Huang's visit is being closely watched in both China and the United States, where a bipartisan pair of senators last week sent the CEO a letter asking him to abstain from meeting companies working with military or intelligence bodies. The senators also asked Huang to refrain from meeting with entities named on the United States' restricted export list. The move to resume sales of the H20 chips comes amid easing tensions between Washington and Beijing, with China relaxing controls on rare earth exports and the United States allowing chip design software services to restart in China. 'The uncertainties between the U.S. and China remain high and despite a pause in H20's ban, Chinese companies will continue to diversify their options to better protect their supply chain integrity,' said He Hui, research director of semiconductors at Omdia. The H20 chip was developed specifically for the Chinese market after U.S. export curbs imposed on national security grounds in late 2023. The AI chip was Nvidia's most powerful legally available product in China until it was effectively banned by Washington in April. The H20 ban forced Nvidia to write off $5.5 billion in inventories, and Huang told the Stratechery podcast that the company also had to walk away from $15 billion in sales. But now, the possibility of new licenses could represent about $15 billion to $20 billion in additional revenue this year, depending on when the approval is granted and how quick the deliveries can ramp back up, said Hargreaves' Britzman. 'There's also a chance Nvidia can reverse some, or all, of the $5.5 billion impairment charge taken in the first quarter, providing a double boost for earnings.' Nvidia also announced the development of a new AI chip designed specifically for China, called the RTX Pro GPU. The company described it as 'fully compliant' with U.S. export controls and suitable for digital twin AI applications in sectors, such as smart factories and logistics. In May, Reuters reported Nvidia was preparing to launch in China a new AI chip, based on the RTX Pro 6000D, at a significantly lower price point than the H20. The graphics processing unit would be part of Nvidia's latest generation Blackwell-architecture AI processors and was expected to be priced well below the H20 for its weaker specifications and simpler manufacturing requirements, sources said. China generated $17 billion in revenue for Nvidia in the fiscal year ending January 26, or 13% of total sales, based on its latest annual report. Huang has consistently highlighted China as a critical market for Nvidia's growth.
