[1/2]In this illustrated photo taken on February 17, 2023, the flags of China and the United States are displayed on a printed circuit board with a semiconductor chip.Reuters/Florence Law/Illustration/File Photo
June 28 (Reuters) – U.S. officials have implemented export controls aimed at slowing the flow of artificial intelligence chips into China by limiting their computing power, two people familiar with the matter said. They are considering tightening the rules.
The Biden administration last October issued a comprehensive set of rules aimed at freezing China’s semiconductor industry while the United States poured billions of dollars in subsidies into its own semiconductor industry.
An update to those rules could come by late July, two sources said, but one person warned that such U.S. actions involving China are often delayed.
The U.S. Commerce Department declined to comment.
NVIDIA’s (NVDA.O) chief financial officer Collette Kress said at an investor conference on Wednesday, “In the long term, if regulations are implemented to ban the sale of our data center GPUs to China, It will lead to permanent lost opportunities.” The U.S. industry will compete and lead in one of the world’s largest markets, impacting our future business and financial results. “
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the Biden administration is considering new restrictions on AI chip exports to China.
One of the October rules, which would limit the sale in China of chips that could provide the computing power needed to develop artificial intelligence technology similar to ChatGPT, was immediately followed by Nvidia (NVDA.O) and It affected sales of products from Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD.O), and may affect future products from Intel Corporation (INTC.O).
Nvidia will be hit hardest by potential tightening of regulations. NVIDIA boosted its valuation to $1 trillion earlier this year due to its strong position in the AI chip market.
Nvidia’s Kress said Wednesday, “We do not expect any immediate material impact on our results, even if such additional restrictions were adopted.”
Questions have been raised about how effective the October rule will be in slowing the development of AI systems by Chinese companies.
Nvidia is making special chips for the Chinese market that comply with October regulations, but Reuters reported last month that Chinese giants such as Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) have cut the time it takes to train. It reportedly plans to use Nvidia’s export-compliant chips to do so. Huge AI system increased by more than half.
The current rules regarding AI chips have two limitations. One of the limitations focuses on how fast chips can communicate with each other. This is important because AI systems such as ChatGPT require thousands of chips to be chained together. Another limitation focuses on how much computing power a chip can have.
For example, the H800 chip developed by Nvidia for the Chinese market has comparable compute power to the company’s chips for the rest of the world in some settings used in AI work, but speeds between chips vary. says it has limitations. Specifications obtained by Reuters.
Intel declined to comment. AMD declined to comment. AMD has previously said the rule would not affect its earnings.
Reporting by Stephen Nellis of San Francisco and Karen Freifeld of New York.Editing: Kenneth Lee, Chris Sanders, Nick Zieminski
Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
